


Hearts on the Chopping Block

by spectrespecs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Food Service, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Cooking, Crushes, Fluff, Game Shows, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Pining Shiro (Voltron), it's just all very sweet, what if everyone went into the service industry instead of space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrespecs/pseuds/spectrespecs
Summary: “You’ve got a big knife,” Shiro blurts out dumbly.Keith looks over at Shiro, surprised, but the right side of his mouth quirks upward in a half smile while he replies, not smoothly at all, “well, uh, yours is big, too...” It’s not; Shiro is holding a peeling knife.Shiro vaguely hears groans and muffled laughs from the room and remembers this moment was definitely just filmed for television. A blush comes back to his face and Shiro hopes everyone will think it’s because of the heat of the kitchen and not because he’s got the hots for another contestant.or, Shiro and Keith are contestants on hit reality cooking competition showChopped





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the entire incredibly kind and wildly talented Sheith fandom. You all made me feel like it was time to start writing again and what better way than throwing these dumb boys in a cooking competition game show to fall in love.
> 
> Shout out to every Chopped contestant who gave interviews about the experience and to the variety of Chopped basket ingredient generators out there.
> 
> If you're not familiar with Chopped, it's a Food Network show where four chefs compete in three rounds (appetizer, entree, and dessert) and have to use a basket of mystery ingredients in each round. They get eliminated one-by-one each round until there is a final Chopped Champion.

“You’re one of the few morning people we’ve had on as a contestant.”

Shiro smiles politely at the producer’s comment as he’s led through the halls of the building to the green room. “It feels important to start the day on a positive foot, especially a day like today,” Shiro says as the two of them come to a stop outside what he presumes is the green room door. The statement sounds like an office motivational poster, but Shiro’s trying. Waking up at 4am in order be at the studio by 6am would be rough to many, but he was used to being an early riser so he could go for a run or to the gym before heading to work.

“Good, keep that positive golden boy spirit going, and it’ll definitely grate at the other contestants’ nerves eventually. That’ll make for some good interview trash talk,” the producer replies in a voice with no emotion whatsoever. Shiro cannot tell if the producer, Slav, is joking or whether he should even be saying that to Shiro at all, but it manages to chip away at Shiro’s mood, and he feels his right eye twitch slightly. Slav opens the door and motions for Shiro to go into the green room. The room looks exactly like it does on television, which Shiro realizes is obvious since this is a television set. He turns back to the door to ask Slav when the other contestants will arrive only for the door to suddenly be slammed shut, so Shiro lets out a sigh and takes a seat at one of the four chairs at the high-top table in the middle of the room.

When Shiro’s coworkers at The Garrison, the restaurant where he proudly holds the position of Head Chef, initially started prodding him to submit an application to be a contestant on _Chopped_ , he had scoffed at the suggestion and told them he would never take part in a cooking competition show. Little sounded less appealing to him than going up against three other chefs to make a dish in a short amount of time using a basket of mystery ingredients that often looked like they were chosen by the devil himself. (Do not even get started on the cruel baskets that Viewers’ Choice episodes concocted. God, Shiro hoped this wasn’t a Viewers Choice episode.) It wasn’t because he thought his skills weren’t adequate enough for the show; his cooking was the one thing he felt incredibly confident in. He had excelled in culinary school and loved the ability to impact people positively through good food all while he moved through the kitchen, but after the accident that left him with a prosthetic and scars, he found himself retreating even further back into the kitchens where he worked. The bionic prosthetic is state-of-the-art, so it got him back to dicing and chiffonading after a few months of physical therapy. Once Shiro had successfully run through every cooking technique he could think of in his apartment, he called Chef Iverson to tell him he was ready to return to his position as a Line Cook at The Garrison. That was several years ago now, and Shiro was more than pleased to have risen to the position of Head Chef, but he still felt uncomfortable outside of the kitchen.

“I think it’d be good for you,” Iverson gruffly said to Shiro one late night after the restaurant closed and all the staff was lounging in the dining area, once again trying to convince Shiro to apply for the show. While Iverson was a hardass who frequently made Shiro’s blood boil due to harsh criticism, he knew for Iverson to recommend the show to Shiro, Iverson believed Shiro would do well, possibly even win. The man had given him a job when Shiro needed nothing more than to get back into a professional kitchen. Shiro had gone home that night and filled out the online application while nursing a glass of whiskey for some courage and passed out after clicking “submit.” Only a few weeks passed before he received an email to schedule an interview, and now after five months since the day Shiro built up that courage, he was grappling to hold onto his confidence as he felt it slowly trickling away from him as the reality of actually being on _Chopped_ set in. Oh no, what the hell had he done?

Shiro nervously runs his hands through his freshly buzzed undercut and tries to tame his white bangs hanging in front of his face. He takes a moment to contemplate whether he should fold down the sleeves of the standard grey _Chopped_ logo emblazoned chef’s jacket he’s wearing, feeling vulnerable to have so much of his prosthetic showing. He already felt like the jacket made his shoulders and chest look broader than they are. Breaking him from his thoughts, the door to the green room opens as two of the other contestants enter.

“Katie?” Shiro says with surprise when he realizes the sister of his best friend from culinary school has walked into the room. The Holt family, including Matt and Katie’s father Sam and mother Colleen, run a restaurant called Rockets, which was famous for mixing comforting family food with molecular gastronomy. To this day Shiro cannot explain how the transparent ravioli with a fake caviar sauce made of olive oil was one of the best dishes he has ever had when Matt took him to the restaurant during one of their breaks from school. The Holts work well together with their strengths to create familiar yet new food, and Shiro deeply respects their skills and admires their closeness.

“You know I go by ‘Pidge’ in the kitchen, Shiro,” Katie, no, Pidge, replies with a flailing motion of her hand that was probably meant to be a wave. She does not share the surprise of seeing him as he does her in the slightest. Pidge jumps into one of the chairs around the table and throws her head back, closing her eyes, clearly not agreeing with the early hour. Matt once told Shiro about how Pidge’s short stature deceived two new line cooks at Rockets, and she sent them both running into one of the walk-ins to avoid her wrath after improperly following her recipe for the day’s special. Shiro knows she’s not one to fuck with.

The other contestant that walked in with her, a lanky brown-haired young guy with pointed features, looks confusedly between Shiro and Pidge before saying, “Established friendly rivalry along with my charm and culinary prowess, this is going to be a good ratings episode for sure.” Pidge doesn’t spare a glance at the guy as she continues to face the ceiling from the chair opposite Shiro at the table. “The name’s Lance, but I’m also known as ‘Sharpshooter’ because every dish I prepare is clean and precise,” Charm And Culinary Prowess says confidently as he sticks his hand out for Shiro to shake.

“Nice to meet you, Lance, I’m Shiro,” he says extending his hand.

“Oh, man! I thought so!” Lance exclaims. “Man, you’re amazing! I read a profile about you last year and keep wanting to go try The Garrison!” He looks over at Pidge, who has opened one eye to look at the other chefs, and he nods towards Shiro while stating, “We might as well go home now since he’s going to take the whole thing.”

“How about we cook first and then see what happens?” Pidge replies, looking bored while moving to lay her head down on the table, returning to a preferred not looking at Shiro or Lance posture.

“Yeah,” Shiro chuckles nervously. The small profile done for the arts and culture section of the newspaper was one of Shiro’s first attempts to break out of the shell he had built around himself, and even though he was proud of it, it still made him feel self-conscious to know that people actually read it. “We don’t even know who the fourth contestant is.”

As if on cue, the door opens once again and the other brave individual who decided to put themselves through televised torture for culinary bragging rights walks through the door. He shuffles into the room, tossing his head to move some of the black hair falling into his face out of the way. His eyes scan the room, finally falling on Shiro and going wide momentarily before moving to look at the floor, continuing his shuffle and taking the seat next to Shiro. Slav informs the competitors that he’ll return in five minutes to walk them through the pantry and cooking space. Shiro wants to reply with a thanks to Slav even though every time he looks at the producer he feels his anxiety spike, but he is distracted by Contestant Number 4’s lean frame and ink-dark hair.

If this was a different type of game show, Shiro would want to win a date with Contestant Number 4.

“Looks like you two aren’t the only ones with a rivalry this episode,” Lance says as he sits down at the table across from Shiro’s Dream Date. “Keith and I are rivals, too.”

“Shiro and I don’t have a rivalry,” Pidge responds, muffled by her head still on the table. She seems to be trying to fall asleep.

“Who are you?” Keith asks, turning his face from the ground to examine Lance with narrowed eyes. Shiro looks away from where he had gotten lost admiring how Keith’s long and slightly unruly hair pleasantly framed his face and were his eyes purple?

Lance makes a scandalized sound at Keith’s question. “We interviewed for the same job at Marmora! It was neck-and-neck, but you got it!”

“Oh, yeah,” Keith crosses his arms and leans back in the chair, “I remember Chef Kolivan telling me he hated the personality of the other guy they interviewed. Guess that was you,” Keith replies with a smug laugh.

Lance huffs and mirrors Keith’s pose by crossing his arms as well. “Huh, can you believe how rude?” he turns to ask Shiro, but Shiro has gone back to admiring Keith.

“I don’t think—” Shiro starts when the door opens to reveal Slav with the addition of a headset and clipboard.

“Alright, chefs, time for you to come tour the kitchen and pantry to familiarize yourself with it before we start the competition. Up, up, let’s go. We don’t have the infinite time of the universe at our disposal,” Slav announces with urgency.

The sound of four chairs scraping across the floor fills the small room as Lance, Pidge, Keith, and Shiro make their way to follow Slav outside. Shiro and Keith bump into each other, both trying to exit the door at the same time.

“Oh, sorry!” Shiro yelps, voice a higher octave then he wants to admit as he backs away from Keith, feeling a small blush start to sprout on his face.

“Really pushing your way to be _Chopped_ Champion, huh?” Keith says with the hint of a smile as he walks in front of Shiro out the door. Shiro thanks the universe that he’s the last one to exit the room, and no one can see that the brief interaction has now caused a full blush to cover his face.

After being given time to peruse the pantry area for the first round, which Shiro honestly did not remember too much about because his eyes kept drifting over to Keith in his network issued chef’s jacket, skinny black jeans, and red Doc Martens circling the racks and shelves of spices and produce. Slav explained in a bored tone how to use some of the kitchen equipment, like the sous-vide and anti-griddle. Shiro’s gaze once again drifts to Keith, who had a determined look in his, yes, definitely slightly purple eyes, as Slav repeatedly reminded them to not break the equipment. They were then all ushered back into the green room and told the next time they’re led out, it will be to formally start filming.

“Who do you think the judges will be?” Lance asks the room as they all return to their seats at the table. “I’m hoping we get Allura.” He sighs the statement while looking slightly wistful.

“Is it because you think she’s hot?” Pidge asks flatly.

Lance makes the same sound of indignation he did when Keith didn’t recognize him and he leans across the table, finger pointed at Pidge. “Hey, I admire her incredible strength in the kitchen as an Iron Chef and for taking over her father’s restaurant.” He leans back into the chair and puts his hand down, which is a good choice because Pidge momentarily looked like she would love to break Lance’s finger. “And yeah, she’s gorgeous on top of all that,” he finishes.

Shiro read all about Allura, as well as the other judges, once he was offered his first audition interview. Allura’s father, Alfor, ran the Michelin Star restaurant Altea, and she had trained in the kitchen with him from a young age. After his unexpected death, Allura had taken over the restaurant. Members of the culinary world assumed she was too young to become Executive Chef; she had proven them all wrong by maintaining her father’s restaurant while also bringing in her own style to the establishment. It wasn’t long before she also became a judge on _Chopped_ and as well as an _Iron Chef._

“I hope we don’t have Hunk,” Keith chimes in, surprising the other three.

“But he’s known to be the nicest,” Shiro retorts with more attitude than he intended and feels regret immediately at his tone. He doesn’t want to treat his competition poorly, but he really does not want to give Keith the wrong impression even though this is the first time he’s spoken to the other man.

“Yeah, but that makes his disappointment if we fuck up feel even worse,” Keith points out, and the other three nod in a quiet reflection that, yes, that actually would be a harder punch to their culinary egos. While Hunk is known for his incredible gourmet restaurants around the world, gentle approach to _Chopped_ contestants, and deep care for food, he also has some trending videos to his name of absolutely tearing apart chefs who have committed crimes against food on the show. A small shudder runs through Shiro remembering the clip where during the appetizer round a chef burned saffron and served it in their final dish.

Slav breaks the four chefs from their silent contemplations as he opens the door to announce they are ready to start filming. Shiro and Keith’s eyes catch as they rise from the table and Shiro feels his earlier flush creep back onto his face and it looks like the corners of Keith’s mouth tug upward slightly. Once lined up in introduction order, Slav listens on his headset and motions for Pidge to walk out first, followed by Lance. Once it’s just Keith and Shiro left, Keith turns to Shiro and mutters a small “good luck” before Slav pulls him forward to go out the door. Shiro is stunned for a moment and doesn’t move until Slav starts yelling at him to come back to this reality and get out there.

*****

Filming a cooking competition show slash game show is miserable, Shiro concludes after the chefs are once again made to open and look into their baskets of mystery ingredients with surprise. The director and producers are trying to capture all the best takes of their reactions, but it’s a bit difficult when there’s a black cloth over the ingredients. Shiro already feels warm on the kitchen set between the lights, ovens already pre-heated to 400, and boiling pots of water.

The judges look calmly over the competitors from their table, the Chopping Block. It turns out they would be judged by Allura and Hunk this episode along with special guest judge Sal, who Hunk had once worked for and become business partners with for Sal’s restaurant, Vrepit Sal’s. Allura’s platinum white hair gleams in the studio lights as she sits still, fingers interlaced on the table in front of her, with her eyes moving quickly to watch the activity in front of her. Hunk sits in the middle of the Chopping Block, looking relaxed with his hands moving excitedly as he speaks to Sal on his right. Sal does not seem to share Hunk’s enthusiasm and has no emotion on his face, only moving to fidget with the neckline of the t-shirt he’s wearing and the lapels of his blazer. Sal looks as uncomfortable as Shiro feels.

“Alright, chefs, please open up your baskets!” the host, Coran, cries with a flourish of his hands that ends with a move that spins his whole body to point at the contestants at their cooking stations. Coran is the type of person who seems to have been born to be a television host. His bright orange hair always manages to clash with whatever extravagant outfit he wears on the show while he twirls his equally bright mustache between white-gloved fingers. He’s known to accentuate announcements throughout the show with full body moves that are somewhere between dancing and thrashing, but the audience at home always loves it.

Shiro once again opens up the basket and hopes his forced raised eyebrows at the black cloth inside provide enough a reaction so the producers can finally move them all on to the actual reveal and cooking portion of the show.

“Cut!” yells the director, and he instructs producers to go around and remove the cloth as the chefs turn around as to not see the inside before the baskets are shut again. Each chef has a producer that watches over their cooking station, and Shiro internally mourns why the universe found it funny to keep Slav as his overseer.

Everything is in place and the real grit of the show is finally, finally about to happen. Shiro’s nerves had just entered a moment of peacefulness after the fifth basket take, but now he feels overwhelmed by fear about if he really should be here. His cooking area is also the one closest to the judges, and Shiro feels dread that he probably will be able to hear their discussions while he’s cooking. He sneaks a glance at Keith, who is at the cooking station next to him on the left and sees Keith’s eyes are set firmly on the top of the basket, not one ounce of hesitation or fear on his face. Shiro admires that determination.

“This is for real this time! Let’s go!” the director yells as the crew gets into their final spaces. Coran repeats his words and movements from earlier, and Shiro opens up the basket to see what evils await him inside for the appetizer round.

“And your appetizers must include,” Coran announces, and Shiro pulls out each ingredient as Coran names it, “Italian sausage, kelp noodles, Calabrian chili peppers, and enoki mushrooms.”

What the fuck is Shiro supposed to do with any of this?

“20 minutes on the clock…” Coran starts and pauses dramatically. “Time starts now! Go, go, go!” Shiro barely sees the spin Coran does as he turns to dash towards the pantry area.

As Shiro looks around the pantry, he wonders if the other three already know what they’re doing while he watches Pidge grab pancetta and eggs and Lance loads his arms with spices. Keith is methodically examining the produce area before he grabs tomatoes. Feeling overwhelmed as he stares at the shelf of spices, Shiro mutters a “patience yields focus” to himself and thinks of all the obvious possible ways this basket could go and lets the memory a comforting noodle broth his grandfather would make him as a child float to the front of his mind. Shiro decides to take that thought and run with it. With the idea in his mind, Shiro grabs what ingredients he needs from the pantry area and runs back to his station. He takes a deep breath and tries to tune out the judges and Coran already speaking with each other. The show allows chefs to bring their own knives, so Shiro pulls out one from the brand new set his grandfather bought for him just for the show. It had arrived from Japan earlier that week with a note of how proud his grandfather is of him. As Shiro settles in to start his mad dash of cooking, he sees Keith take out the knife he brought. It’s very large. And purple.

“You’ve got a big knife,” Shiro blurts out dumbly.

Keith looks over at Shiro, surprised, but the right side of his mouth quirks upward in a half smile while he replies, not smoothly at all, “well, uh, yours is big, too...” It’s not; Shiro is holding a peeling knife.

Shiro vaguely hears groans and muffled laughs from the room and remembers this moment was definitely just filmed for television. A blush comes back to his face and Shiro hopes everyone will think it’s because of the heat of the kitchen and not because he’s got the hots for another contestant. Shiro also vaguely realizes that the blush makes the scar across the bridge of his nose stand out more, but he shrugs that thought off. Part of coming to _Chopped_ was to become more comfortable with himself, and not caring what he looked like was part of that.

Shiro feels like he lucked out with the enoki mushrooms because of his background, and he has experience with kelp noodles but has no idea what Calabrian chili peppers are until he takes a small taste from the jar and concludes they will make a decent enough inclusion in his miso broth base. Once he’s satisfied with the start of the broth’s cooking, Shiro realizes he’s forgotten to grab ginger he needs for the sauce he has in mind. In his haste running, Shiro grasps Keith’s shoulders as he yells warning of “behind” and feels Keith quickly tense and relax under his hands. Shiro lingers for a beat longer than necessary, especially given the circumstances, and continues to make his way past Lance and Pidge to the pantry. As he’s running back to his area, Shiro looks at Keith sauteing something and has a vision of a domestic scene where Keith and Shiro team up to make exquisite meals, true food masterpieces, together in their shared apartment. Forgetting to yell a warning that he’s running behind the other chefs on his return trip, Shiro almost crashes into Lance and the vision dissipates in his head. Get it together, Shirogane, you’re pining for him and dreaming about domestic bliss when you’ve exchanged a couple barely-sentences. But it was a nice domestic dream, Shiro does concede to himself.

“Ten minutes remaining chefs!” Coran seems unable to announce anything without a full-body flourish. Shiro panics momentarily since that means he has five minutes to make sure all his food is where he needs it to be and then five minutes to plate. He mentally goes through the basket ingredients and where they’re featured in his appetizer as he takes his finely diced Italian sausage and lightly browns it with some ginger and garlic. Allura makes a sound of interest, and Shiro tunes into what the judges and Coran are discussing for once. It sounds like Pidge is already throwing some of her molecular gastronomy to use by creating a foam. Shiro doesn’t hear the whole conversation and goes to get his plates.

Coran declares five minutes remaining as Keith runs through Shiro’s space, grabbing Shiro’s bicep as he warns Shiro he’s behind him to run to the plates. Shiro wonders if he’s imagining that Keith squeezed his arm a bit more than needed as he went by. Shiro is minutely disappointed that when Keith makes his way back to the cooking area the plates in his hands don’t allow for a repeat moment of physical contact.

“You need to start plating in order to finish in time!” Hunk yells from the judge’s table, and Shiro goes through his mental checklist of the damned basket ingredients and the components of his dish a final time. He gently twirls kelp noodles into the bottom of the bowls he’s chosen, enoki mushrooms and julienned vegetables deftly placed around the noodles with the broth gently poured over each serving. Everything around him feels like chaos as both the judges to his right start frantically crying for the chefs to finish and Pidge and Lance on the far side of the set are flinging expletives as they finish their appetizers. Chancing a look as he goes to retrieve the Italian sausage sauce to top off his dish in the last seconds, Shiro sees that Keith has sweat making its down down his forehead, hair around his face curling slightly as he squints to arrange components how he desires onto a plate.

Shiro hears Allura’s worried cry of “What is Shiro doing?” and frantically starts adding the sauce to his dish, not realizing he has maybe stopped a bit too long to look at his competitor. Coran starts counting down the last few seconds of the round, and Shiro takes a moment to clean up any splatter on his bowls and throws his arms up in the air when Coran calls that time is up. Shiro gazes down at the perfect bowls in front of him and nods to himself in relief and satisfaction.

“Good job, looks great,” Keith says from right next to Shiro, making Shiro jump in surprise. While feeling relieved at the concluded round, he had somehow failed to notice Keith move over to his cooking space and admire Shiro’s food.

“Thanks!” Shiro replies while looking over at what Keith made. “Wow, that looks amazing!” Shiro exclaims at what appears to be some type of pesto based dish on Keith’s finished plates. He looks back at Keith, who is beaming and still standing close to him, and Shiro momentarily forgets how to breathe.

The chefs stand in silence in the pantry area as the crew moves around the set to prepare for the judging round. Once lined up in front of the judges, Shiro’s anxiety spikes again, but he knows there’s no turning back now. Producers quickly set down his dish in front of the judges and the director calls for filming to begin.

“Chef Takashi Shirogane, please tell the judges what appetizer you have prepared for them,” Coran invites.

“Today, judges, I have prepared for you a miso and enoki mushroom broth with kelp noodles, topped with an Italian sausage and Calabrian chili sauce.” Shiro holds his breath as he watches Allura, Hunk, and Sal start trying his dish and waits for one of them to start speaking. To his great relief, all the judges enjoy his cooking. Not one for many words, it seems, Sal simply informs Shiro that his appetizer has strong well-developed flavors and everything is cooked well. Hunk asks what his inspiration behind the dish is, and Shiro explains how the ingredients made him think of his grandfather, to which Hunk gives a warm smile that makes Shiro also share a look of joy.

Finally, Shiro knew this would come at some point but didn’t think it would be the very first round. fter Allura provides her agreement with the other two judges on Shiro’s cooking, she asks Shiro what brought him to _Chopped_.

“Well, as you can kind of tell…” Shiro falters for a moment before continuing on. “I was in an accident shortly after finishing culinary school, and it left me in a difficult place,” Shiro raises his bionic arm and gently grazes the scar on his face and his white tuft of hair. “I was able to overcome the physical setbacks and get back into a professional kitchen less than a year later, but I’m still trying to get better at not hiding in the kitchen and just—” Shiro suddenly stops again as his chest begins to feel tight actually saying the words out loud in front of strangers and cameras.

Next to him, Keith shifts on his feet slightly and he feels the other man’s hand gently brush his along with a quietly murmured “it’s okay.”

“And I’m just trying to be able to put myself out in the world and be comfortable again,” Shiro rushes out and wishes he could turn to Keith and say something instead of having to keep looking at the judges who all nod and praise him for being on the show.

He’s only known the man standing on his left for a few hours, a couple of exchanged words and moments of physical contact, yet it feels like some level of understanding and familiarity already exists between them. Shiro aches inside between feeling raw from what he just expressed to the room, and really, the world, but also for how what started as a mild crush has escalated to a deep feeling in his bones that he must, he needs, to get to know more about Keith.

Letting the rest of the judging fall into background noise as Shiro calms himself back down, he briefly becomes aware of the judges being impressed with Pidge’s Calabrian chili foam and less than enthused at Lance’s attempt to fry the kelp noodles. When the final dish of the round, Keith’s, is placed in front of the judges. Shiro perks himself back into full attention mode. Keith explains that his dish is kelp noodles with a Calabrian chili pesto and roasted enoki mushrooms with some type of Italian sausage sauce on the side. Relief floods through Shiro, stronger than during his judging, when Allura and Hunk praise Keith’s work and Sal nods in agreement. The next round feels hopeful.

Once back in the green room to wait during the judges’ deliberation, Lance immediately starts bemoaning how his appetizer didn’t go the way he wanted at all but he knew it would still be strong enough to make it to the next round. Remembering that Pidge created a foam, Shiro tells her he’s glad to know she’s bringing Holt family staple techniques to the competition, and she excites at the thought of representing her parents and brother well. Keith remains quiet through most of the chatter between the chefs, the post-round smile dropping from his face as soon as producers had told them to walk away from their cooking stations.

“Pesto was a smart idea,” Shiro tells Keith, with a slight nudge of his elbow. Keith’s cheeks flush slightly as he mutters a small thanks and says the same of Shiro’s noodle broth.

“Yeah, but I think I played it safe maybe,” Shiro contemplates.

“At least you didn’t melt your kelp noodles in the fryer, like Sharpshooter over here,” Pidge offers to Shiro, and Lance yells a “HEY!” as Shiro and Keith both let out small laughs. The discussion doesn’t get a chance to move any further as a producer comes in to take them one by one for quick interviews about the round.

*****

“Whose dish is on the Chopping Block?” Coran questions as he looks upon the four, soon to be three, chefs. Allura, Hunk, and Sal all look stoic as Coran raises his arm to the cover on the dish of the contestant who is about to be out. Even though Shiro feels confidence in his dish after the judging and green room discussions, he cannot help but feel uncertain of his success at the moment. Coran suddenly lifts the dish to reveal a plate of congealed noodles as Keith exhales a sigh of relief next to him. It takes Shiro a second to process that it’s neither his or Keith’s dish staring back at them while Lance let’s out a groan.

“Chef Lance, you’ve been Chopped,” Coran intones while lowering his head slightly, as if in mourning. “Judges?”

“Lance, even though the sauce you created for the dish was wonderful, we could not excuse your treatment of the noodles. For that reason, we had to Chop you,” Allura delivers the final blow to Lance’s _Chopped_ dreams. He rocks back and forth briefly on his heels before nodding at the judges and offering his thanks for the opportunity and turning to leave. Shiro feels sad to see the confident man leave because it’s still a shame to witness a fellow chef perform below their normal standards, even if in the conditions of a competition designed to try and make you fail. Trying not to dwell on it too long, Shiro allows himself to once again feel accomplished at making it past the first round.

The remaining three chefs sit around in the green room as the crew reset the kitchen and pantry until a producer retrieves them to go to a different room for lunch.

“I’ve read that the catering company they use to feed us is awful,” Shiro jokes to Keith, feeling a little bit bold as they walk side-by-side through the hallways.

“But it’s literally a cooking show on a channel with ‘Food’ in its name,” Keith frowns.

“I think it’s for added torture to the experience,” Shiro responds solemnly.

Both men look at each other from the corners of their eyes and share similar small smiles.

Loading their paper plates with abysmal sandwiches, Shiro and Keith sit next to each other in the catering room while Pidge elects to sit by herself on the opposite side, away from the other two. Shiro thinks he should probably try to talk to her since they do know each other, but he’s also very content taking this time to attempt to learn more about Keith.

“So, um,” Shiro stumbles out with no grace, “Sorry about the knife comment during that last round.”

“No big,” Keith shrugs and makes a face of displeasure as he takes a bite of his turkey sandwich. “I like my knife, and I think everyone found the whole moment kind of funny.”

“Yeah, I guess it’ll add to the entertainment value,” Shiro muses, “Where did you get the knife?”

“My mom.”

Excited at the realization that in a way the two of them have something in common, Shiro fails at successfully swallowing his bite of sandwich before trying to speak and promptly begins to choke and cough. Keith’s eyes widen with shock as he tries to thump Shiro’s back in an effort to ease the choking. Pidge looks over from her corner, while Slav—who is unfortunately watching over them—seems to think Keith has it under control but still deadpans, “oh, great, now we’ll have to start filming over if you choke.”

“Are you okay?” Keith asks while still resting his hand on Shiro’s back.

Shiro nods and lets out a few more coughs. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he heaves, a slight pang of disappointment goes through him when Keith moves his hand back. “Just a mild mishap,” Shiro tries to laugh but ends up coughing again as Keith looks on with worry. “I’m fine!” Shiro finally gasps. Once he regains the ability to speak without the feeling of dry turkey and bread lodged in his throat, Shiro shares with Keith that his knives today were also a gift from family.

“Did your mom get you into cooking?” Shiro asks. Keith’s face turns downward at the question, making Shiro regret the inquiry immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, you don’t have to answer…” he trails off. Silence wedges between them while Shiro kicks himself mentally for not keeping conversation lighter than family dynamics and personal stories.

“My mom wasn’t around until recently,” Keith informs the sandwich on his plate more than Shiro as he speaks, long hair falling into his eyes. “Both my parents weren’t around for a while, so I went between foster homes. Some were better than others. Sometimes I got to learn cooking during family meals. Sometimes I had to scavenge the kitchen and cook something myself if I wanted to eat. Cooking became a stability, in a way. It was something I could always do.” Keith turns to Shiro with a thoughtful expression, head slightly tilted. “So, I guess in a way, Mom did get me into cooking”

“Wow,” Shiro breathes, “that's—”

“A lot,” Keith cuts him off. “Yeah. I know. Sorry. People don’t want to hear sad orphan tales.”

“They do on reality TV,” Shiro quips, words out of his mouth before he thinks. “Oh my god, I’m sorry,” he panics.

Much to Shiro’s surprise, Keith chuckles gently. “You’re not wrong, and I kind of wonder if that sad, sappy story is what made them call me for the interview in the first place.”

“I mean, I didn’t come here with a glowing backstory full of good fortune,” Shiro comments, waving his hand over his body.

“You’re right, what a fucking tragic pair we make.”

The statement makes both of them break into a surprising fit of quiet, shoulder shaking laughter. It feels good to be open about his life and not have the other person pity him, Shiro thinks. Talking with Keith lets something warm unfurl in his chest alongside that strange, aching familiarity he feels with the other man. This moment feels as much like letting go and becoming comfortable with himself as putting himself in front of television cameras; the closeness of this moment with just one other person feels even more powerful.

“This isn’t even the first knife my mom got me,” Keith adds as their laughter dies down. “When I was a kid before she disappeared, she left me with a dagger. An honest to god dagger. I had to hide it with me through all the homes, and then when she found me last year and saw I was a chef, she thought it would be fitting to get me a high-quality cooking knife as some sort of knife giving family tradition.”

“Are you serious?” Shiro guffaws.

“Maybe I can show you that knife sometime, too,” Keith smirks.

Shiro chokes on air at what sounds like a proposition. This time Keith makes no move to try and help him, choosing to take another bite of his sandwich to hide his smile.

Eventually, the time comes for them to march back out to the set for filming the entree round of the competition, but Shiro still feels airy, lighter as he stands before his cooking station. There’s a brief incident when Keith pulls out a hair tie to put his longer hair up in a ponytail and Slav starts yelling at him about universal continuity. Keith eventually put both arms up in surrender and took his hair down, muttering under his breath about how Slav looked like the lovechild of a bird and a weasel. While he still feels the press of competition nerves on him, the anxiety of simply being himself has dissipated significantly and replacing it is a soft feeling towards the chef next to him. Shiro vaguely thinks that developing a crush on your game show competitor probably isn’t the best idea, but he can’t find it in himself to dwell on the conundrum too hard. When the three remaining chefs are allowed to open the baskets sans cloth covering to start the round, Shiro gazes down at the ingredients—yak strip steaks, soft pretzels, coconut chocolate bars, and goat cheese—thinking, yeah, he can do something with this.

*****

Staring in shock at the plate revealed by Coran, Shiro takes a moment to comprehend that neither Keith or him has just been cut from the competition.

“Chef Pidge, you’ve been Chopped.”

Each of the final three had their problems with the finished products of the entree round, particularly with properly cooking the yak steaks; everyone either overcooked or undercooked the meat. Hunk truly bemoaned the fact that the animal deserved better treatment than what the chefs put it through in the kitchen. “It’s already dead, have some respect,” Hunk had mournfully said. Keith’s goat cheese mashed potatoes has ended up a smidge on the runny side, while Shiro’s attempt at a chocolate coconut pretzel breading rub for the meat did not wholly achieve its desired effect. Luckily for them, and truly, truly unfortunately for Pidge, as Shiro reminded himself since she was technically a dear friend, the short but ferocious chef had attempted an ambitious use of the smoking gun to infuse some hickory flavor into the yak. Because of all her effort on the not-quite-successful smoking, the rest of her components fell short, Hunk explained, as Pidge stated her thanks and walked off the set.

Dazed by the fact Keith and him made it to the final dessert round, Shiro felt like the steam and heat from the kitchen was permanently clogging his senses as they went through the motions of waiting for the crew to reset the kitchen one final time. Keith kept clenching and unclenching his fists on the tabletop as they sat in the green room; Shiro kept his eyes on the door while nervously running his hand through his bangs.

“It’s been a long ass day,” Shiro sighs, eyes still on the door.

Keith simply nods and continues his unbroken pattern of clench-fist-and-unclench. Shiro’s eyes break from their door vigil to watch the motion of Keith’s hands, which he finds somewhat mesmerizing. Even though Keith has been cooking next to him, Shiro hasn’t actually watched his hands at work and can now imagine the sure grip they have on a paring knife or the force they’d have while smashing a cleaver down. Shiro also momentarily imagines how Keith’s hands would looking clenching on one of Shiro’s shirts as he pulls him down to mouth-level.

Conversation between the two chefs hasn’t flowed since they left the catering room; nothing about the silence feels uncomfortable. Each chef is trying to focus amid the coiling wires of nerves within them, and somehow the air between holds less tension and more complacency. Shiro knows that making it this far on the competition and overcoming some of his own inhibitions are victories in their own way, but he truly can taste that last win, it’s so close right now. One dessert round that could make him the Champion. On the other hand, if he were to lose to Keith, he wouldn’t mind it at all. The man across him had his own personal battles to win here, and Shiro would be glad to see him take home the prize at the end of the day.

A producer sticks their head through the door to let Shiro and Keith know they’re ready for the dessert round to begin. As the competitors amble out of the room, Shiro quietly says “good luck” at the door, recalling the sentiment from Keith before the first round. Keith turns his head and smirks back a “you, too.”

Since this is the last round, the crew want to create tension and position the chefs face to face as Coran announces the dessert round. Shiro meets Keith’s eyes and stares right back. There’s no battle for dominance between their respective grey and purple gazes, but there is something burning behind Keith’s eyes that Shiro strongly believes his mirror back to the dark-haired man. Maybe they’ll find each other after all this television nonsense is over. Maybe they’re always meant to find each other.

Coran stands between the two men and looks between them before prodding, “Chef Keith, any last words to Chef Shiro before we take a look at what’s in those baskets?”

“There’s no one else I’d rather be here with,” Keith says impatiently, not breaking eye contact with Shiro.

“Any response to that, Chef Shiro?” Coran presses.

“I feel the same,” Shiro nods with his answer, letting the right side of his mouth raise in a small smirk. Somewhere in the background, Shiro thinks he hears an “ugh” in Slav’s voice.

Coran laughs, a little more deeply than is needed. “Chef Shiro, Chef Keith, open your baskets!” Coran cries with a full-bodied twirl so exaggerated, he almost topples to the ground.

“For your dessert round, you will need to include: green papaya, rock candy, chocolate cigars, and sauerkraut.” Shiro pulls out the ingredients from the demon basket one final time and already feels dread over the last ingredient. What the hell is he supposed to do with sauerkraut? Dessert hot dogs? “Thirty minutes for this last round…” Coran pauses and pulls out a gold pocket watch from his suit jacket and twirls his orange mustache. Shiro is not amused. “Time starts, now, now, now!” Shiro and Keith both dash to the pantry as Coran most definitely pirouettes back to the judges' table.

For whatever reason, Shiro’s mind automatically goes to pie as the answer to this dessert basket. Knowing there’s no way in hell he can get a pie crust together in the short period of time, he decides to figure out a way to make sauerkraut into a flaky pie dough with some flour, butter, and sugar. Green papaya has no flavor since its unripe, so Shiro knows he’s going to have to coax it into submission to work for him. Maybe with the rock candy? He’ll get to that soon, for now, the pie crust.

Next to him, Keith starts using the food processor to break down the chocolate cigars, and Shiro is thankful he looks over because it reminds him he needs to acknowledge those damn things as well at some point. Shiro allows himself to get into the groove of cooking as he cobbles together what he hopes passes as a pie dough to make some small papaya tarts. He moves on to cutting up the papaya and makes the mistake of taking his eyes away from the fruit and knife in front of him to quickly look at the countdown clock on the wall. In those few seconds, Shiro cuts himself and feels as if someone poured ice water down his back. Reflexes set in to pull his hands away from the cooking space to avoid contamination, and he yells at the crew that he needs to be bandaged as he runs to wash his hands in the sink. At hearing Shiro yell about requiring a bandage, Keith’s head whips up from the stove while Shiro makes it to the sink, and the judges all stand up to see what’s happened. Slav makes his way over to Shiro’s station while the medic comes to help Shiro.

The crew gives Shiro’s station an all clear as he hastily shoves a glove over his injured hand and yells a “FUCK” for good measure at the minutes lost due to his stupid mistake. Even though he knows he needs to get back to work, Shiro just feels overwhelmed and stares at his work on the counter. Seeing the chef not moving after already having a setback, Allura and Hunk start yelling respective “what is he doing”s, which only serves to make Shiro freeze up more.

“Hey, buddy, you okay?” Keith yells over from his cooking station. Shiro turns his head to look at him; Keith is looking back at Shiro as well, cooking paused.

“Oh, this is interesting,” Shiro hears Coran comment in the background.

“Just focus,” Keith says, finding Shiro’s eyes in the kitchen heat and haze. “Just focus and you’ll be fine.” Keith doesn’t look away after he finishes speaking like he’s waiting for Shiro to react before returning to the task at hand.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks,” Shiro nods slowly, feeling as though responding any way other than affirmatively would be the worst thing in the world he could do to Keith. Shio knows he can do this. Keith knows Shiro can do this. The lightness and chest ache from earlier returns and settles deep within him.

When Coran announces ten minutes remaining in the round, Shiro knows his pie crust will not be where he wants it to be at all, the papaya rock candy filling will be passable, but the sauce he’s made from the chocolate cigars kicks ass. Hopefully, together they will be a functional dessert, and that’s all Shiro can do as he wraps up cooking, hope. Hope that the final plate he presents is edible. Hope that it might be enough to make him win. Hope that maybe after today he can see Keith in a less hectic context.

Six minutes remain, Keith grabs Shiro’s bicep again as he runs past to get the plates, and Shiro swears he hears the other man breathe out a “you’re okay” to him. Even if it was just his imagination, that additional small show of support pushes an extra amount of determination from somewhere deep within Shiro that he didn’t even know he had. Shiro begins gingerly plating his dessert and executes perfect sauce swipes, mentally high fiving himself on the exquisite presentation he’s putting forth. When Coran calls time and Shiro steps away from the counter, relief, pure, sweet relief floods his body. It’s over, well, the cooking portion, there’s still more parts of the show left to deal with, but the most agonizing part is over.

“Great job!” Keith cries, walking over to Shiro and raising his hand. Shiro surprises himself by automatically raising his hand as well to grasp Keith’s and bring their bodies together in a brief not-quite-hug of acknowledgment. When they let go and move apart, Keith wipes the sweat off his forehead and smiles. Shiro thinks he’s glowing.

When the two chefs wait for the judging, Shiro tells Keith quietly, “Thank you, for your encouragement...during the round.”

Keith shrugs, “I figure you’d have done the same for me.”

“Yeah, I would have,” Shiro agrees softly. Standing next to Keith in a major cable network studio’s fake kitchen set after ten hours of filming a cooking game show feels surprisingly pleasant. The mood is short-lived when the producers call them back out for final judging.

Shiro’s dessert gets the honor of being judged first, and he explains his attempt to riff an apple pie by making a sauerkraut pie crust papaya tart with rock candy glazed fruit and chocolate sauce. As expected, the crust gets deemed creative and ambitious by Hunk, but a failure of execution by Allura. Sal simply says the sauce is good but the fruit tastes artificial due to the candy.

When Keith’s dessert comes out, Shiro feels embarrassed at first to realize that he didn’t even bother to look at Keith’s plates when the round ended, especially because they look perfect.

“Chef Keith,” Coran calls, “please tell the judges about your dessert.”

“Judges, I have prepared for you a German chocolate custard with strawberry rock candy sauce and cinnamon papaya chips,” Keith recites confidently.

And it’s all so smart, every single component. Cooking the sauerkraut with coconut for German chocolate, the treatment of the strawberries with the cooked down candy, and the papaya. It’s all such smart cooking, and Shiro knows that he’s lost; if Shiro won, he would tell the judges they’re crazy. But he doesn’t have to fear that because each of them loves every aspect of Keith’s dessert. Hunk possibly has tears in his eyes over what Keith did to transform the sauerkraut, while Allura admires the papaya chips and consumes all of the ones on her plate. Sal, ever the man of few words, says he agrees.

“Finally, Chef Keith, can you please tell us why came to _Chopped_ today?” Coran questions.

“Well,” Keith sighs, ”I like cooking. I’ve always been good at it, and I wanted to be able to push those skills.”

“What would you do if you win?” Coran follows up.

Keith stalls for a moment before answering. “My mom just recently re-entered my life, and it would be nice to have something to help us both start over as a family again.” Keith looks at the floor while he says this, which Shiro knows will piss off the crew for the ruined shot.

“That’s wonderful,” Allura proclaims with her eyes twinkling, possibly from the set lights, but more likely because she is genuinely touched by Keith’s shy admission.

Shiro feels hyper-aware of the cameras recording them when they return to the green room during final deliberations.

“You’ve totally won this,” Shiro declares.

Keith scoffs, “But you used way more elevated techniques than I did all day.”

“But your creativity definitely passed mine! German chocolate with sauerkraut! That’s incredible.”

“Your presentation has been gorgeous all day.”

Shiro barely prevents himself from rebutting that Keith is the one who’s been gorgeous all day and settles for saying presentation doesn’t make up for flavor. Shiro and Keith then go back and forth on who deserves to win more, and Shiro feels like today was significant for both of them in their own ways. The fact they’re the last two standing in today’s competition signifies matters much grander than just winning a game show.

“You’re right,” Keith agrees, eyes diverting from Shiro’s face to the tabletop between them. “You’re so good,” he barely whispers. Shiro wasn’t aware he even said his thoughts out loud, but he’s glad he did.

“Alright, time to go back out for the end!” one of the producers booms from the corner of the room.

“Great, I want to be in a universe where I don’t have to listen to them anymore,” Slav intones as he walks to open the green room door.

“See you on the other side,” Shiro says with a smile as he steps out of the room with Keith mirroring the smile.

Shiro and Keith step onto their marks in front of the judge’s table. Crew members runs around to get everything in its final place and touch up the judges’ appearances. When the all clear is given throughout the set, Coran steps up and starts at the director's yell of “action!”

“So, whose dish is on the Chopping Block?” Coran recites, looking between Shiro and Keith. His hand moves to the stainless steel cover hiding the loser’s dessert. The seconds pass and Shiro can feel the dramatic music that will get placed over this scene in the editing room.

Coran’s hand raises to reveal a plate with a failed sauerkraut pie tart.

“Chef Shiro—” Coran stops suddenly because Shiro turns to Keith and launches himself on the other man in a tackle hug. Shiro’s larger height and build should send the two falling to the ground, but Keith’s shorter and leaner frame has more than enough strength to keep them upright.

“You did it!” Shiro rejoices, face tucked into Keith’s hair. The other man only comes up to Shiro’s chin, and his arms wrap all the way around, and then some, Keith’s body. Keith is essentially buried in Shiro.

“Chef Shiro,” Coran attempts to start again, and Shiro pulls off Keith, who clasps one of his newly freed arms on Shiro’s shoulder and lets out a pure laugh that rings through Shiro’s entire being. The unfiltered joy from Keith sets Shiro off, and they both look at each other and laugh with equal amounts of happiness.

“Are you friends?” Coran asks, deviating from the _Chopped_ script norm to accommodate the fact that the two contestants don’t care about sticking to what they’ve been told to do.

“Nope,” Shiro says, this time actually moving away from Keith, turning to look at Coran and the judges. “Just met today, honestly.”

“Well, I’m glad that even during the savage battle of culinary skill, you two were able to bond,” Coran says, with what feels like genuine jubilance, “but Chef Shiro, you have been Chopped.” Coran gestures towards Sal.

“Chef Shiro,” Sal starts in his standard monotone, “your appetizer was not creative enough and your entree’s meat and sauce were not well executed. For these reasons, we had to Chop you.”

“I understand,” Shiro agrees, “Thank you for allowing me to cook for you,” Shiro nods at the judge’s table and turns to Keith one more time. “Congratulations, Keith!” he cries before finally doing as instructed and walking down the Hallway of Disappointment.

Once off the kitchen set, producers usher Shiro into the room where he must complete all his interviews that will be spliced into the show. Initially, he had thought this process would be miserable if he lost, but now, after a day spent cooking next to Keith, he doesn’t care. He has no qualms about the day and will gladly tell everyone what happened as he cooked and what went wrong.

Producers prod him with questions about choices he made and techniques he utilized during the competition while also throwing in prying inquiries about his personal life. He agreeably talks about Pidge and the Holts because he can shower the family with praise all day, but he refuses to talk smack on Keith as one of the producers keeps pressing. In defiance, Shiro keeps complimenting Keith’s cooking, even when not directly asked about it. Maybe he talks about Keith a little too much. After finishing up another statement about how he feels his loss is not a setback and the entire day has been a positive step forward for him, Shiro signs the non-disclosure agreement and is released back out into the world.

Shiro turns his phone back on and watches notifications light up the screen as he stands outside the building he spent fourteen of the most grueling hours of his life in and contemplates what he’ll do next. He thinks he’ll just start walking and appreciate the cool spring evening when the door behind him opens and Keith walks out.

“Hey,” Keith says with surprise seeing Shiro standing there.

“Hey,” Shiro smiles, “How did your interviews go?”

Keith scowls, “I hated it.”

Shiro laughs, shifting from one foot to the other. He’s at a loss with what to do now that Keith is in front of him, outside of the eyes of the crew and cameras.

“You should, uh, come by the restaurant I work at some time,” Keith awkwardly mumbles out.

“Yeah?” Shiro breathes. “I think it’s fair I try the cooking of the chef I lost to.”

“Exactly, learn to respect your superiors,” Keith laughs.

They continue to eye each other until Keith breaks the silence again. “Well, I’m fucking tired and going to go pass out until I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“You’re going to work tomorrow?” Shiro asks incredulously.

Keith responds with a half-shrug-half-nod.

“Okay, well...I won’t keep you, then,” Shiro tries to hide his disappointment and kicks himself for not knowing how to handle this better.

“See you around, Shiro,” Keith says with a wave and starts walking down the street.

“Bye,” Shiro calls after him. As Shiro watches Keith walk away, the ache once again manifests in his chest with thoughts of Keith’s glowing laughter and gently curling hair in the kitchen heat. Yeah, Shiro will see Keith around soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marmora appears to be a perfectly respectable restaurant, Shiro thinks, as he stares at it from across the street. But then again, what else did he think it was going to be? When Shiro agreed with Keith last night after filming Chopped that they’d see each other soon, Keith probably didn’t think it would be the very next day. Maybe it’s crazy for Shiro to be here, but after waking up from his post-filming death sleep and going for a run, he still felt restless. At that moment, the logical conclusion for Shiro was to get dressed and go get something to eat, and what if he happened to decide that a restaurant on the other side of the city where his game show crush worked sounded like the best place for an afternoon meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for the kindness about part one! 
> 
> Please watch Season 26, Episode 2 "Chopped Catwalk" to see my inspiration for writing this whole thing.
> 
> And now I give you what I mentally refer to as "if this was any sweeter, they'd be pastry chefs."

Marmora appears to be a perfectly respectable restaurant, Shiro thinks, as he stares at it from across the street. But then again, what else did he think it was going to be? When Shiro agreed with Keith last night after filming _Chopped_ that they’d see each other soon, Keith probably didn’t think it would be the very next day. Maybe it’s crazy for Shiro to be here, but after waking up from his post-filming death sleep and going for a run, he still felt restless. At that moment, the logical conclusion for Shiro was to get dressed and go get something to eat, and what if he happened to decide that a restaurant on the other side of the city where his game show crush worked sounded like the best place for an afternoon meal.

It was 2:30pm now, and Shiro could tell that the restaurant was hitting that between lunch and dinner lull. It was now or never. Once inside the door, the host at the front automatically greets Shiro and seats him at a small table by the front corner window. The host, Thace, looks like he should have a job as some kind of secret agent instead of seating diners at a gourmet restaurant. While Shiro gets lost in this thought as he sits down, Thace lets him know a waiter will be with him shortly.

Looking around the interior of Marmora, Shiro notes that thought clearly went into the aesthetic of the restaurant. Everything is sleek and modern in shades of black and grey with accents of purple. The floors are a deep black tile with flecks of silver and purple in them, and the ceiling looks as though it mirrors the floor’s black, but it’s actually a dark purple. The walls are white in contrast to the floor and ceiling. Each table has a shining stainless steel top with black wooden chairs upholstered in plush purple velvet fabric. Transparent acrylic light fixtures hang from the ceiling to illuminate the space. Somehow the entire restaurant seems severe and comforting at the same time.

After looking his fill of the restaurant decor, Shiro looks down at the menu Thace placed before him. The one-page menu is printed on black paper with MARMORA stamped across the top in shiny purple letters, and the rest of the menu is printed in bright silver ink. The page itself sits clipped onto a smooth silver board. There’s a symbol embossed at the bottom of the page that’s supposed to represent the restaurant in some The Artist Formerly Known as Prince fashion. A true commitment to the aesthetic. Shiro only became aware of the last bit of trivia regarding the restaurant symbol while reading an interview with owner and Executive Chef, Kolivan, on the train ride over. Reviews tended to say that Kolivan appears austere and his restaurant a bit lavish, but the Head Chef and food create an experience that is worth it when one dines at Marmora.

“Hi, welcome to Marmora,” a waiter says as he comes over to Shiro’s table and fills his water. “I’m Regris, and I’ll be taking care of you today. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

“Actually,” Shiro replies without a second thought, looking up from the menu, “I do have a question.”

“Oh, go ahead,” Regris nods as he sets Shiro’s glass back down on the table.

“Is Keith working today?” Shiro asks timidly, suddenly hit with the realization of what he is doing.

Regris tilts his head slightly and inquiries, “Are you a friend?”

Shiro doesn’t know how to respond at first. Are they friends? They were competitors yesterday but their interactions felt amicable enough.

“Yes,” Shiro nods, hoping the pause wasn’t too long.

“I’ll let him know he’s got a friend here,” Regris chimes and walks away. Shiro turns in his seat to watch the waiter go through the doors to the kitchen.

Shiro spends the next few minutes staring blankly at the menu, not actually reading it at all, rethinking this whole idea of coming to see Keith. Then, Keith himself appears next to Shiro’s table, surprising the seated chef.

“It’s rare that someone wants to speak with the chef before even trying a bite of the food, let alone not even ordering yet,” Keith intones as he looks down at Shiro. Keith puts a hand on the chair across from Shiro’s at the table and leans on it. He’s wearing a black chef’s jacket, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and skinny black jeans with his hair up in a ponytail; Shiro wonders if those are the same red Doc Martens from yesterday. 

“Well,” Shiro smiles, “I’ve heard some pretty amazing things about the Head Chef of Marmora Restaurant, and I wanted to come see for myself.”

“See him or the food?” Keith asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Both,” Shiro responds, looking Keith straight in the eyes.

Keith maintains the eye contact briefly before pushing off the chair and takes the menu from in front of Shiro, walking away. Shiro sits up in his seat and panics thinking that Keith absolutely does not want to see him and this was such a huge mistake.

“Stay there,” Keith calls behind his back as he walks away, “I’ll bring you both in a bit.”

Shiro turns around in his seat and settles back down while exhaling a sigh of relief. Okay, maybe this was not such a bad idea after all. Even though Shiro has not taken a drink from his water, Regris comes over in the guise of refilling his glass.

“Who are you?” he asks roughly.

“Just a friend of Keith’s,” Shiro offers in response, hoping it’ll suffice for the waiter who is much taller than Shiro’s already quite tall 6-foot-plus height. He should also be a secret agent with Thace over there. Or maybe a UFC fighter.

“And where did you meet?” Regris prods, smiling strangely sweet.

“At a cooking...event…” Shiro replies, hoping it comes off more confident than it sounded.

“Yeah, sure,” comes the sarcastic reply from Regris. “You’re a chef as well?”

“Yes, sir,” Shiro nods.

“Hmmm,” Regris mulls over the answer and slams Shiro’s water glass back down on the table, walking away. Shiro flinches at the sound and diners at the other tables look over at him as if Shiro has committed a crime. He looks towards Thace at the host’s stand by the front door, and he has his eyes narrowed at Shiro. Great, so everyone who works here seems to be very protective of Keith. Maybe they are all secret agents or protective detail because this is all a ruse for Keith, the secret prince of an unknown land. Maybe Shiro’s seen _The Princess Diaries_ too many times.

Shiro takes out his phone and tries to busy himself on missed notifications and social media but only grows more anxious while scrolling through all the endless feeds. He also hates that he’s sat with his back to the kitchen door and wonders if it’s too late or will look too strange for him to move to the other chair. His phone vibrates with a text message notification from Matt asking who won, which means Pidge divulged the details of the previous day to her older brother. Shiro knows if he tells Matt—and even only just Matt—the entire world will end up knowing, and Shiro will get hit with the fine of breaking his NDA. So, he chooses to ignore the text for now, along with all the others sent from his coworkers at the restaurant clamoring to know what the _Chopped_ experience was like.

Just as he’s slowly pushing his water glass with one finger to the other side of the table so he can move to the other side unnoticed—or as discretely as someone with his height and muscles is able—a plate of food gets set down in front of Shiro. Keith swings around and sits down across from him with a matching plate of food. No longer in the chef’s jacket, Keith is wearing a simple black v-neck, allowing Shiro view of high collarbones and toned arms. Shiro stares with his jaw dropped slightly.

“Here you go,” Keith declares, leaning back in the chair, “Marmora’s special today, seared scallops with Brussels sprouts in a bacon lemon cream sauce and the Head Chef,” Keith raises both hands and gestures towards himself as he says the last part.

Both plates of food look immaculate and smell incredible. The scallops look perfectly seared, making Shiro tear up a little thinking that they probably have the most flawless buttery consistency. The union of Brussels sprouts and bacon is also inherently holy.

Shiro looks up at Keith from the plate and asks, “Is this all your own recipe?” voice full of awe.

“Of course,” Keith smiles as he gestures for Regris, who comes over right away. “Regris, can you get me another set of cutlery. I’m also taking my break now.”

“But you never take your break,” Regris replies, clearly shocked.

“Yeah, well, today I am,” Keith retorts. Once Regris turns on his heels and walks away, Keith looks back to Shiro. “Now you’ll know why I won.” 

Shiro picks up his fork and knife as Regris tosses cutlery wrapped in a cloth napkin down on the table at Keith, causing for the second time in the past half hour for everyone else at the restaurant to turn towards Shiro at the table and scowl for the commotion. Regris takes up a position next to Thace at the host’s stand, eyes watching the two chefs at their table.

To his credit, Keith doesn’t ignore the behavior. He just shrugs and says, “You know, it can be like a family.” Shiro immediately understands what Keith is talking about, thinking of the staff at The Garrison and how they had all huddled, both literally and metaphorically, around him after his accident and continue to protectively watch over him.

They both start cutting into their food at the same time, letting time pass in silence to simply appreciate Keith’s cooking.

“Well, Chef” Shiro breaks the quiet as he spears a piece of Brussels sprout with his fork. “I guess you did deserve to win.” 

“You’re damn right,” Keith says, not looking up from his plate as he eats his last scallop. “But I have to admit, I did think you’d win the whole thing.”

“Why?” Shiro asks, surprised, swiping up some sauce on a scallop and popping it into his mouth, barely containing a groan of appreciation that, yes, the scallops have the optimal smooth texture.

“I recognized you,” Keith states. “From that profile the newspaper did.”

Shiro groans from displeasure and not enjoyment of the food, “Did anyone not read that profile?”

“Maybe some people not in this city’s food service industry,” Keith replies thoughtfully.

The arts and culture section write-up haunts Shiro. What he had assumed would feature his culinary training and work at The Garrison ended up being a dramatic retelling by the author of Shiro’s post-accident recovery with bits of cooking sprinkled in the middle. While the author did give high praise to Shiro’s kitchen work ethic and the dishes he prepared for them, Shiro still felt like the whole piece could have just focused more on the food. Shiro still felt some of the embarrassment of the other contestant, Lance, recalling the profile yesterday, and his uneasiness grows knowing that Keith remembered it as well.

“I just really don’t care for that article,” Shiro says, looking out the window as he raises a hand to awkwardly scratch at the short hair of his undercut.

“It was really good, though?” Keith counters, puzzled. “Super complimentary and enough to make me aware you’re a talented chef.” Shiro doesn’t notice Keith’s eyes briefly travel to Shiro’s arm that’s just been raised before the purple eyes slide back to Shiro’s face.

Shiro warms at the praise because it’s from Keith and not because it stems from the profile. He clumsily offers thanks to the other man for his kindness. 

“Anyway,” Keith continues, “you do make a point that it skipped some important information, like why you actually got into cooking?”

“Yes!” Shiro excites at the question, pleased he can share something with Keith instead of trying to think of more things to say himself. “My grandfather owned a restaurant in Japan and my family would go back every summer to visit, and as soon as I was old enough to help out in the kitchen, I learned everything I could from him. Eventually, my parents decided to stay in Japan, but I came back here to go to culinary school.”

“So, are you going to take over the restaurant one day, then?” Keith asks.

“No,” Shiro shakes his head. “I’m carving my own path.”

“And here I thought you had dreams of being an astronaut,” Keith gestures with his fork at Shiro’s shirt, which states “I need my space” with the NASA logo.

Shiro laughs, “I mean, yeah, when I was a kid.”

Their conversation is broken by Regris appearing to clear the table of their plates. Shiro barely realized that both of them had polished off their meals fairly fast during their back and forth.

“Chef Kolivan needs you back in the kitchen,” Regris tells Keith, swiping the napkin from Shiro’s lap, causing him to squeak and jump in surprise. Regris doesn’t bat an eye. 

Keith nods and starts to push himself up from the table. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Put both these plates on my personal tab, by the way, Regris.” Regris nods his head dutifully and walks away. 

“That’s not necessary,” Shiro sputters. 

“It’s the least I could do for letting me beat you yesterday,” Keith shrugs and claps his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro feels warm from the meal and the touch. “I’ve got to get back to work, but thanks for coming by. I’ll see you at The Garrison sometime, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course!” Shiro tries to hide his disappointment in Keith having to go back to work. “I need to get some errands done before going to work tomorrow, so I should head out.” This is a lie because Shiro took the day before filming _Chopped_ off to relax, but instead, stress caused him to complete all his chores and errands. Meaning, by 1pm he had done laundry, bought groceries, and cleaned his apartment. There was nothing left for him to do today.

“Best we don't keep each other, then” Keith squeezes Shiro’s shoulder, which he’s still gripping, and smiles. “See you around.” 

“Yeah, see you,” Shiro smiles back, and Keith removes his hand and walks back to the kitchen. Shiro watches him leave until he disappears through the door. Regris and Thace are still glaring daggers at Shiro, so he drops a significant tip down on the table and profusely thanks the waiter and host as he exits the establishment.

*****

“You’re no fun,” Nyma declares as Shiro sets down the plates for table number three on the counter in front of her.

Every person who works with Shiro at the restaurant has not stopped asking him how filming _Chopped_ went two days, and since he did not reply to any of their texts and now refuses to reveal anything when he is back at work, they are turning mutinous on the man, Head Chef or not.

“I told you,” Shiro sighs, exasperated. “Not until the episode airs. Now take that to table three!”

Nyma rolls her eyes, and the waitress carefully balances the plates and goes into the dining area to deliver the meals, her long, blonde hair swaying as she stalks away. Shiro shakes his head and reaches for the next ticket to call out the order.

“You told Iverson what happened!” Rolo, Shiro’s sous chef, complains again, as he has all day so far. 

“Yes, and that’s because he’s my boss, and I know he won’t go blabbing to the world and break my NDA,” Shiro retorts. “Now, let’s get to work on this order, okay?”

“So you’re saying you won,” Rolo perks up.

“No,” Shiro replies agitated, “I’m saying no one keeps their mouth closed around here, and we need to get started on this order. It’s the lunch rush, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Rolo continues to grumble about how Shiro has the fun factor of a bag of cornmeal. Shiro stops himself from commenting that there’s actually quite a bit one can do with some cornmeal and the right ingredients, but the retort feels like a clear invitation to start Show-That-Must-Not-Be-Named discussion again.

The lunch rush passes in its usual bustle of constant orders and cooking until 2pm hits and both front-of-house and back-of-house staff have a moment to take a breather. Shiro keeps his eyes on the kitchen door while he drinks water, trying too hard not to hope that Nyma will come into the back informing Shiro that he has a dark-haired man here to see him. Nyma does rush through the door to drop off dishes to be cleaned and turns to inform Shiro that a friend is here to see him. 

Shiro wants to thank the universe for blessing him for once, “Really?” 

“Yeah, it’s Matt,” Nyma replies, not looking up from where she’s setting plates and silverware into the sink.

Shiro deflates in disappointment and also feels dread at the thought of talking to Matt about anything regarding the show. Who knows what Pidge told him. He walks into the dining area of The Garrison and sees Matt sitting at the bar, arms excitedly flailing while speaking to the restaurant's bartender, Shay. There’s a familiar look of despair on Shay’s face that anyone who gets caught in one of Matt’s explanations of a new molecular gastronomy technique usually wears about two minutes into the one-sided conversation. Shiro takes pity and pries Matt away from her, shooting a look of apology in her direction as Matt tries to wrap up talking about peanut butter powder and strawberry jelly noodles. 

“Stop being a heathen to the staff,” Shiro admonishes Matt as the two friends make their way out to the back alley behind the restaurant. If Matt is going to talk about the show, Shiro wants to make sure it’s out of the way from his coworkers. 

“What did Katie tell you?” Shiro demands before Matt even starts his questioning.  
  
“That you and the Head Chef from Marmora made it to the dessert round.”  
  
“Great,” Shiro replies curtly, “then there’s nothing else left to discuss.”  
  
“Are you serious?” Matt raises his eyebrows at Shiro in disbelief. “You really think you’re going to get away with just that?”  
  
“I shouldn’t have to say anything else. NDA?” he reminds Matt.  
  
Matt scrutinizes Shiro before speaking. “Nothing to say about that Marmora Head Chef?”  
  
Shiro panics internally and tries to maintain his calm while replying. “No, nothing other than he’s a good chef for ending up in the final round with me.”  
  
“Uh huh,” Matt sounds unconvinced, “He didn’t end up anywhere else with you?”  
  
“ _NO_ ,” Shiro responds, louder and with more emphasis than necessary.  
  
Matt sighs and shakes his head, taking a step closer to Shiro and pats his arm while tutting. The entire interaction feels incredibly condescending.  
  
“Oh, Shiro, under all that muscle and culinary ability, you’re so transparent, you know? Katie told me everything,” Matt says with exaggerated dismay, “She told me that you and, what was his name?”  
  
“Keith—“ Shiro replies gruffly, belatedly realizing it wasn’t actually a question. He kicks himself for falling into Matt’s game so easily.  
  
“Ah, yes, Keith.” Matt has a shit eating grin now. “Katie said that you and this Keith spent most of the time making eyes at each other. She mentioned something about a knife comment? Basically, it sounded like it was truly disgusting to be in the same room as the two of you.”  
  
Shiro crosses his arms in an attempted act of defiance. “That’s not what happened at all.”  
  
Matt keeps staring at Shiro, expression blank yet unrelenting.  
  
Shiro is a simple man at heart and breaks in record time. “He’s just very talented and very pretty and it was so easy to talk to him, Matt, you don’t understand.”  
  
“And there it is,” Matt says, a triumphant expression breaking across his face. “So what do you know about him?”  
  
“Just what he told me during our lunch break, basically,” Shiro shrugs, relaxing his attempted defense stance.  
  
“And you haven’t looked anything up about him?” Matt asks, and Shiro shakes his head in response. “Come on, man, these are modern times, haven’t you seen _Catfish_ ? You can find everything about someone online, especially your culinary crush,” Matt adds while pulling his phone from a pocket.  
  
“Is that a cooking show?” Shiro asks, completely sincere.  
  
Matt’s thumb pauses from where it was about to swipe the unlock screen of his phone, and his eyes slowly move up from the screen to the oblivious man across from him.  
  
“Never speak to me again.”  
  
“What? You said ‘catfish’? Is that a Southern cooking show? I don’t get how it’s related.”  
  
“I really don’t have time for this right now,” Matt replies, going back to his interrupted internet sleuthing, but Shiro starts making his way to the door.  
  
“I need to get back to work, I’ve already been gone too long.” Shiro wants to return to the kitchen to both actually resume the reason he is here at The Garrison and to be ready in case a certain someone shows up and Shiro needs to excuse himself briefly to meet that someone in the dining area.  
  
“Come on where’s the Takashi Shirogane I knew at school” Matt whines. “The fun one who switched Lotor’s salt and sugar during an in-class assignment?”  
  
Shiro stops and grins, taking a moment to remember the rush of Matt distracting both Lotor, the pompous idiot, and their French Regional Cooking course instructor, while Shiro managed to sneak to the other student’s cooking station and change ingredients. There was no way that Shiro could have been discrete in the act to the other students, but everyone was secretly bonded in a pact to allow anything happen that could lead to Lotor’s downfall. Two hours later, their instructor was sputtering in disappointed anger when Lotor’s Ratatouille was extremely sweet instead of savory.  
  
“He’s here,” Shiro can’t help but laugh, “just waiting for the right moment to use his powers of good again.”  
  
“This is a time to use your power of good!” Matt cries.  
  
“I’ll let this take an organic course,” Shiro replies.

The back door slams open, and Nyma walks out carrying a large garbage bag.

“Hey, Nyma,” Matt calls, “We were just talking about the new dessert I put on the Rockets menu. It’s peanut butter and jelly but with powdered bread and peanut butter and jelly noodles!” Sometimes Matt can be a good friend, as he shifts the conversation away from _Chopped_.

Nyma doesn’t spare a glance at the two chefs as she bodily throws the bag into the large dumpster. “If I wanted to eat bread crumbs, ground peanuts, and Twizzlers, I’d look in my pantry when I haven’t gone grocery shopping in three weeks,” she deadpans as she opens the door and disappears back inside the restaurant.

Matt sputters in indignation and Shiro can tell he’s just barely containing himself from running inside and explaining how the dish is not what Nyma just described, but Matt’s need to torture Shiro for more information wins out. On a second thought, maybe Matt is a terrible friend.

Shiro takes Nyma’s interruption to also indicate it’s time for him to go back to the restaurant and follows her back inside, not acknowledging Matt, left back outside in the alleyway yelling at Shiro for being a coward.

*****

Keith doesn’t come by the next day. Or the next three following days. Shiro’s mood over these days slips causing all of The Garrison’s staff to tread lightly around their Head Chef because there’s something incredibly soul crushing watching his demeanor transform into the personification of a puppy caught in a rainstorm. Theories fly that it has something to do with _Chopped_ with most staff assuming Shiro is having a delayed reaction to a loss, even though he has still yet to disclose any information regarding the show.

Matt comes by on day three to chastise Shiro for being stubborn in both spilling the truth about what happened on the show and for being a “coward of love” in regards to Keith. Shiro tells Matt it’s out of care of their friendship he doesn’t physically toss the food science nerd out of the restaurant. When Matt makes a comment about wanting to buy matching engraved Chef’s knives for Shiro and Keith’s wedding, Shiro grabs the menace by the arms and pulls him out of the kitchen, but Matt laughs the entire time, ruining the tough image Shiro wants to convey.

And on the fourth day, there finally was a blessing.

“There’s a guy looking for you,” Nyma says, almost as an afterthought as she picks up a plate of short rib sliders for a table. 

“What?” Shiro squeaks, hands flying into the air in surprise, letting go of the kitchen towel he’s holding. It sails across the kitchen and lands on one of the line cook’s heads. Shiro doesn’t notice because he’s already hastily trying to make his way around the counter and out into the restaurant.

Following Nyma out of the room, Shiro scans the dining area, which is bustling during the lunch hour. Shiro freezes once his eyes find Keith sitting at the bar. When Shiro saw Keith in Marmora, the dark haired man looked like he belonged in that restaurant. Right now, Keith looked decidedly out of his element in The Garrison. 

Every part of The Garrison comes from Chef Iverson. The dark stained wooden bar covers the singular wall painted dark orange along one side of the restaurant. Shelves stained the same dark mahogany line the painted wall with various liquor bottles. All the tabletops match the stained wood of the bar, but the legs and chairs are painted a laurel green. Give Iverson the time, and he’ll boast to anyone that the floors of the restaurant are the original wood from when the building was completed over a hundred years ago, which he hires a specific company to come in twice a month to maintain. Silver lantern wall sconces and fixtures around the restaurant give it a warm glow. Sometimes Shiro feels it all seems a bit militaristic in appearance, but he knows the food he puts out on their crisp white dishes feels completely the opposite. 

Keith swivels in his barstool and catches sight of Shiro standing unmoving in the back of the restaurant and gives a small wave. Shiro returns the gesture as a feeling of warmth crashes over him at the sight of the other man. While making his way to the bar, Shiro grabs Nyma and tells her to skip whoever might be waiting and put Keith at the next table for two available. He doesn’t give her time to argue before he walks away towards the other chef. 

“I’ve never had someone ask for the Head Chef when all they’ve ordered is—” Shiro drawls, mirroring Keith’s words at Marmora as he approaches and takes a look at the glass in Keith’s hand, “a whiskey sour?”

Keith grins and downs the rest of his drink. “I gave my compliments to the bartender,” he nods at Shay, who is watching the two men while making someone a vodka cranberry, “and now I needed to compliment the chef.” 

“There’s nothing to compliment,” Shiro replies, confused.

“Oh,” Keith starts, eyes looking Shiro up and down quickly, “I beg to differ.”

“You’ve got a table,” Nyma appears suddenly next to them and jerks her head to a table in the center of the restaurant.

Keith sits down in one chair as Nyma puts a menu down in front of him, but Shiro remains  standing behind the other chair, both hands on its back as he leans down once the waitress walks away. “I need to repay the favor,” Shiro tells Keith with a smile and plucks the menu out of the other man’s hands. Keith’s eyebrows raise when Shiro straightens up and turns on his heels to go back to the kitchen. 

On his walk back, Shiro feels like this interaction went way better than he thought it would because he did not embarrass himself at all. Yet. For now he’s letting that ache in his chest that wants to get to know Keith lodge itself back deep inside while he thinks of what to cook. Shiro examines the simple menus printed in black ink on heavy cream paper as if everything on this page is brand new information to him and not half of it his own recipes. His gaze settles on one of The Garrison’s well-known entrees.

“Hey, Rolo,” Shiro yells once back in the kitchen and hears an affirmative response from the sous chef, “I’m making two Garrison Shepherd's Pies on the fly and then taking a break for a bit. You okay to step up for a while?”

“Hell yeah, boss,” Rolo replies, giving a small salute with the crab claw in his hand.

Shiro gets to work. He seasons ground lamb while waiting for his pan and oil to heat up and drops the lamb in to fry for a few minutes. Keeping an eye on the lamb, he addresses all the vegetables he’ll need: onions, carrots, potatoes, celery, and mushrooms. He gets the potatoes boiling while throwing the other vegetables into the already cooking lamb and adds some thyme, rosemary, and Iverson’s Classified Recipe Worcestershire sauce. After pouring in some red wine and taking in the warmth of his cooking so far, Shiro smiles at the thought that he’s going to share this food with Keith. Sometimes, Shiro thinks, the act of cooking for someone you’re getting to know and care about feels incredibly intimate. Once stock has been added and the sauce looks like it’s in a good simmering place, Shiro turns to start on the garlic parmesan mashed potatoes he spent many tiring nights trying to get just right for his satisfaction to put anywhere on The Garrison’s menu. The trick, he finally concluded in his big “aha!” moment was to use a potato ricer and white truffle oil. Once both components are ready, Shiro assembles the Shepherd's Pies in two dishes and puts them in the oven to brown.

While the pies are cooking, Shiro ducks into the bathroom to check on his appearance. What he was expecting after working all day in the kitchen, particularly right now during a lunch rush, Shiro doesn’t know. His cheeks are slightly red from the kitchen’s heat and his white bangs are clinging to his forehead because of sweat. He tries to smooth things into place and splash some cold water on his face before going back into the kitchen. Pulling out the dishes from the oven, Shiro cannot help but feel satisfaction at how truly perfect both Shepherd's Pies look. Perfect golden brown mashed potato peaks hiding a beautiful bubbly sauce underneath. 

Taking off his chef’s jacket, Shiro calls to Rolo that he’ll be back in 30 minutes and takes the dishes out into the dining area. 

Keith looks tense in the restaurant, eyes darting around, and the tension in his shoulders does not budge when Shiro appears and places the food on the table.

“The meal and chef I owe you,” Shiro announces and takes the seat opposite Keith. 

“Wow,” Keith sighs looking at the dishes. “Yo—They’re perfect.”

“Stop admiring and start eating,” Shiro hopes he’s not blushing as he looks away from Keith and takes up his rolled napkin and silverware as Keith does the same.

Similar to when Shiro went to Marmora, the two chefs sit in silence for several minutes as they eat their food, this time with Keith breaking through their food focused thoughts.

“Good,” Keith simply states,”but I still think I deserved to win.”

Shiro chokes on a carrot in surprise but recovers quickly, thankfully not recreating the scene from the first time they shared a meal on the show’s set. Keith eats a forkful of mashed potatoes while keeping his eyes on Shiro through the carrot ordeal.

“You cooked better than me that day, fine,” Shiro concedes, “But my mashed potatoes are better than yours,” he adds, teasing. 

Conversation flows easier between the two in between bites. Shiro learns that Keith’s first restaurant job was with Chef Kolivan, and the extremely daunting chef trained Keith and put him through culinary school. After a few years under Kolivan’s watch, the Executive Chef realized he once was friends with Keith’s mom and considerably softened towards the aspiring chef but still put him through the paces in the kitchen and made sure he was top of the class through culinary school.

“One time Kolivan got really, really pissed at me over something that I don’t even remember,” Keith starts telling the story with a hint of mirth, “and I told him I would go interview at one of Iverson’s restaurants. He hates Iverson for some reason or another.”

“Did you?” Shiro inquires, wondering which restaurant and when, in the case that the two could have crossed paths.

“Oh, no,” Keith shakes his head, “I somehow managed to get on the phone with him and just said I wanted an interview to piss of Kolivan. Iverson yelled at me for wasting his time and hung up.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Shiro laughs. “Wait, didn’t Lance say you interviewed for the same position at Marmora? But you worked for Kolivan?”

Keith nods, “I was at Kolivan’s other restaurant then, Blades, but then after whatever fight that was, he told me I would have to earn my job back and made me go through the whole interview process. He literally pulled Lance’s application out of the stack blindly to annoy me by having competition for a job that was essentially mine. At the end, he told me I didn’t get the sous chef job at Blades back, and I was ready to throw hands, but he said I could be Head Chef at Marmora.”

Shiro shakes his head with more laughter at the story, letting the comforting familiar feeling of the now fully consumed Shepherd's Pie and Keith’s company settle over him. 

“So, did you look at any other cooking competitions before deciding to go for _Chopped_ ?” Shiro asks, “Or was it just _Chopped_?”

“I thought about _Beat Bobby Flay_ ,” Keith admits, “Knocking that smug bastard down sounds incredible, but apparently all you get from winning is the satisfaction of beating Bobby Flay and a small fee. I need something more than only knowing I’m better than a chef who was a guest star on multiple episodes of _Entourage_.”

“So you really hate Bobby Flay?” Shiro snorts.

“Is it obvious?”

The two chefs start chuckling, and somehow the gentle laugh becomes a deep one that settles into both their stomachs. They can’t look at each other without tears welling in their eyes and having to grip their sides harder. Shiro feels wildly free and giddy.

There’s a slam and rattle of the table when Nyma walks by, forcefully placing a receipt down on the table. Shiro sobers up and wipes his eyes, and Keith sits up from where he slumped halfway out of his chair. Reaching for the check, Shiro apologizes that Nyma even left it because obviously the meal was covered by Shiro, but Keith beats him to it and looks confusedly at the paper.

“What is it?” Shiro asks, trying to snatch the bill from Keith’s hands. 

Keith snorts and turns the paper around to show Shiro. There’s nothing printed on the check but a familiar number written across it in a black marker.

“That’s my phone number,” Shiro blurts out, confused, and then slowly it dawns on him what Nyma did. What she inferred, what all of The Garrison’s staff observed and interpreted while their Head Chef sat with someone, laughing and eating at the center of the restaurant.

“Oh?” Keith quips. “I’ll keep this then.” He gently folds up the paper and pulls out his wallet to store it in. “Well, with that, I think I need to leave. I promised I would meet my mom for some shopping in a bit.”

“Yeah, of course!” Shiro cries, nodding and standing along with Keith. “I should get back to work. I think it’s probably been more than the 30 minutes I told my sous chef.”

“Probably,” Keith agrees, eyes flitting between looking at Shiro’s face and around the restaurant.

Shiro suddenly realizes he does not know how to handle goodbyes with Keith in any capacity and then makes the moment even more awkward by taking the hand Keith puts out for a handshake and using it to pull the shorter man into a hug. Keith makes a muffled sound of confusion when his face meets Shiro’s chest in the unexpected hug. Shiro panics and pulls Keith back, hands on his shoulders, apologizing profusely. Keith’s face is red as he repeats again over and over that there’s no need for Shiro to say he’s sorry, and for some reason Shiro finds himself trying to clean off invisible lint from Keith’s red v-neck.

Eventually, they make it through the minor trainwreck of a goodbye. Shiro picks up their dishes to head back to the kitchen only to be met with the sight of Nyma and Rolo standing in the door, shaking their heads at him. He raises both hands with their dishes in a shrug and feels a blush crop up across his face. His staff is the worst, he thinks, but he loves them.

***** 

And so, this is how it goes for the next few months. Shiro started it in a way and Keith kept the tradition going with his reciprocated visit, but the back and forth doesn’t properly become established until Shiro gets a text from an unknown number two days after Keith’s first Garrison stop. It’s Shiro’s day off, and he will tell anyone who asks that, no, he wasn’t still in bed at noon because he was moping a little bit at still not having heard from Keith.

 _Hey, it’s Keith. Can I come by post lunch rush?_  

Shiro jumped out of bed and ran to turn on the shower while typing back, _“Yes! Sounds amazing! Looking forward to seeing you again!"_  He then deletes and retypes the message several times before settling on a simple " _Yeah, sounds great!"_  and hits send. 

Keith’s reply of _"Cool"_  makes Shiro respond out loud with “you’re cool.” He looks around his bathroom ashamed as if someone else might have heard him in the apartment where he lives alone.

When one of them has a day off with free time, they go over to the other’s restaurant. Keith and Shiro work their way through their respective menus and own personal recipes, cooking meals for each other and sitting down together to talk about everything from their own lives to pop culture preferences.

“ _Catfish_ isn’t a cooking show?” Keith asks confusedly. 

“Exactly!” Shiro cries, “Thank you!”

Everything feels natural between them. The silences when they both concentrate on eating the food one of them just cooked reminds Shiro of being able to sit in the same room with a loved one and knowing you don’t have to communicate always for it to count as spending time together.

“Why is all the Marmora staff so big, and you’re so small?” Shiro cracks and asks Keith one evening after the other chef texted Shiro if he could come over to The Garrison an hour before it closes. Shiro agreed without a second thought and made salmon in a lemon butter sauce on a bed of roasted purple potatoes for them. The two also took advantage of the restaurant afterhours by cracking into the bar’s liquor and adding to Shiro’s personal tab.

“I’m not small!” Keith gasps back, scandalized.

“So you admit the staff is all very tall and buff?”

“So are you!”

“So you admit I’m also tall and buff?" 

Keith throws a caper at Shiro, who tries and fails to catch it in his mouth. It lands in the whiskey sour—Keith’s apparent drink of choice—Keith made for him instead. Shiro pouts at the offending caper for a moment and then downs drink. Keith gets up to make more drinks for them, and Shiro leans back in his chair to watch the way the dark hair in the man’s ponytail has slowly been unraveling out as the evening passed. Maroon sweater shedded, Keith was wearing a capped sleeve black t-shirt that allowed Shiro to appreciate the arms he had become incredibly fond of as they flexed working at the bar. Shiro felt a tingling comfort from the alcohol and the sight of Keith working; it reminds Shiro of his brief vision during filming _Chopped_ of them in domestic bliss.

Shiro knows that working in the food industry does not always allow for the most easy home and family life, let alone attempting relationships. He’s witnessed and heard enough about other chefs struggling to balance their long hours at restaurants with spending time with loved ones, and he’s also seen his share of failed relationships as a result. Shiro and Keith are not established as anything other than friends, but simply trying to see each other when they’re both in the service industry feels like a struggle at this stage. What type of strain would their schedules and a relationship have, Shiro wonders, stomping down the idea as soon as it tries to blossom.

The two chef’s days off only ever fall on the same day a handful of times, but even then they both still have their own lives and other obligations to attend to on those days. Shiro learns that Keith’s mother, Krolia, teaches self defense classes, and Keith assists her on the days he doesn’t have to go into Marmora. Something about knowing Keith definitely has the ability to throw Shiro across a room and pummel him into the ground makes the taller man’s knees weak.

Shiro also learns that Keith gets around the city on a motorcycle. 

“The subway is too unreliable for me, and a normal bike...no, just no,” Shiro gapes over the grilled bourbon steaks made by Keith, who looks unperturbed as he cuts a piece of meat.

After they finish eating, Keith takes Shiro on a ride around a few blocks. Arms gripping Keith’s lean torso, Shiro laughs out of fear for his life and genuine joy as they zip through the busy city traffic. Keith later pokes fun at Shiro for how his white bangs stick out from the helmet’s visor.

Shiro forces himself to feel content with what they have.

***** 

It seems fortuitous that the day their episode of _Chopped_ airs happens to be a day both chefs have off from work. The Garrison and Marmora have viewing parties planned to cheer on their Head Chefs in the televised culinary gauntlet, but in the end, Shiro and Keith decide that they’re going to watch the episode together without the disturbance of their friends and coworkers. Keith recommends they watch it at Shiro’s place since he lives alone, and Shiro readily accepts while also casually asking if Keith wants to cook some episode-watching food together. Keith thinks it’s a great idea and starts firing off texts for the rest of the week about all the possible things they should make that will complement each other’s cooking styles. Shiro is taken aback because somehow he never put thought into how their individual skills and culinary visions intertwined fairly well.

When the day finally dawns, Shiro cleans his apartment to the finest grain and triple checks to make sure he did in fact buy his half of the ingredients for the finalized evening menu. After a shower, he agonizes over what to wear for much longer than he will ever admit. While smoothing out his shirt in the mirror, Shiro gets mad at himself for thinking this day is anything more than competitors turned good friends watching the show where they met. That’s it. Just some innocent hanging out.

Keith arrives right on time at 5pm, arms somehow juggling four bags of groceries.

“I got some more ideas at the store,” he explains while crossing the threshold into Shiro’s home. Keith glances around and nods appreciatively at the surroundings as Shiro attempts and fails to take some of the bags out of the other chef’s arms. Keith deposits all the bags on the kitchen’s island and voices his approval for the space. 

A _Chopped_ marathon is airing until the premiere of their episode that night, so they put it on in the background while prepping and cooking.

Shiro’s decided to make steak tartare and fried zucchini, while Keith chose lobster and crab cakes with a rainbow carrot salad. While cooking in a kitchen with his sous chef and line cooks always felt more like a family built on trust and understanding, cooking with Keith in the small kitchen in his home makes Shiro feel like the two were sharing a particularly close moment. Most of the time Shiro is content to let the sounds of chopping vegetables and sizzling pans fill the space, but he can’t help but feel delighted when Keith asks about opinions on cooking methods and ingredients. Occasionally both chefs stop to watch whatever is transpiring on the airing episode of _Chopped_ and swap comments critiquing the choices of the competitors.

“Oh, no, someone’s going to to just repurpose the burger into a stuffed burger,” Keith laments when bison burgers are revealed as a basket ingredient.

The show cuts to Allura who says, “ _I really hope no one tries to just turn around and still give us a burger_.”

A contestant is then shown deciding to create a cheese stuffed burger. Keith makes a sound of self-satisfaction and returns to finely chopping thyme leaves 

Shiro dusts the fried zucchini with some parmesan and lets it set as he begins chopping up steak for the tartare. Keith carefully molds together his crab and lobster cakes, gently admiring each one as he places them on a plate to await cooking. The mixture itself with saffron and basil already smells amazing and it will only improve once the cakes hit the saute pan. Between Keith’s cakes and Shiro’s tartare, they are undoubtedly about to have one of the most lavish _Chopped_ watching parties, and, frankly, they both deserve it. Somewhere along the line, they get into an argument about whether the edge or center piece of a brownie is best. Keith lodges a piece of crab at Shiro’s head while laughing, and Shiro tells Keith he’s aghast at his treatment of not only ingredients but another chef’s kitchen. He says this while also laughing and flinging a slice of zucchini. A truce is called before the food fight escalates because neither of them are pastry chefs, so what do they know about brownies. 

Everything is finished and plated just in time for their episode to air. Shiro takes a picture of their spread of food sitting on his coffee table with the end of a _Chopped_ episode on the television in the background. Keith rolls his eyes because he’s generally against photographing food you’re about to eat.

Shiro once showed Keith all the glowing captions and comments on food prepared by Keith that were tagged on Instagram. Even though Keith waved it off by saying he already knows customers at Marmora like his food, he did preen a bit while leaning over Shiro’s shoulder to look at the phone, warm hand on settled on Shiro. Shiro kept reading comments because he wanted the touch to stay and because he wanted Keith to see how much people really did love his cooking.

Finally settling down on the couch with their food, Shiro turns to Keith and asks, “Are you ready to do this?”

“We’ve already lived it,” Keith shrugs, tucking into the steak tartare, “how can watching it be any worse?”

“That’s true,” Shiro agrees, taking a bite of the crab and lobster cakes, which taste like true decadence.

The episode starts with Coran’s voice explaining the show over the standard intro of clips from past seasons, except at the end of today’s intro, there’s a clip of Shiro and Keith smiling at each other as Coran says “And sometimes, surprising relationships form.” Oh, no.

Shiro can’t look over at Keith next to him as the show’s logo fades to Coran standing next to the judges and declaring it’s time to meet this episode’s competitors. Lance’s introduction shows him cooking both at home with his large family and at Five Lions, the restaurant where he works, while he talks about the influences of Cuban cooking on his career. Naturally, Pidge’s introduction shows her at Rockets and features her cooking alongside all her family, carefully making faux olive oil caviar. Shiro holds his breath as it starts on Keith’s clip.

The video begins with a shot of Keith cooking in the Marmora kitchen with a voiceover introducing himself. It then cuts to Keith seated at one of the tables in the center of the restaurant.

“ _I started cooking at a fairly young age, sometimes it was out of necessity, sometimes I was helping a whoever the guardian I was placed with, but I just really grew to enjoy cooking and figured it would be a career that works for me_ ,” Keith on the screen says as more shots of him cooking are cut in. There’s something surreal about seeing the man he’s gotten to know so well, who is literally sitting next to him, up on the television screen.

“ _My mom recently re-entered my life_ ,” television Keith starts, and Shiro’s eyes widen, not expecting to see the small studio where Krolia hosts her self-defense classes appear on the screen. “ _I_ _help her teach self-defense classes sometimes, and I really want to show her that I’ve done well, even if she’s not been there._ ” A clip of Keith flipping a man over his head makes Shiro feel incredibly jealous for no discernible reason. “ _And winning_ Chopped _would help me share with my mom that I’m good at what I do, and it would give us some financial help to start our lives over together as a family_ ,” Keith concludes. His eyes dart away from the camera when it cuts back to him saying this at the Marmora table.

“That was actually awful,” the Keith sitting on Shiro’s couch says once his introduction ends. Shiro doesn’t respond because he’s already cringing at the thought of having to watch his introduction air now.

“ _I’m Takashi Shirogane, and I’m the Head Chef at The Garrison Restaurant_ ,” Television Shiro cheerfully states, and Couch Shiro wants to sink into the floor a little bit at how chipper he sounds for the camera. They show him cooking before cutting to Shiro sitting at the restaurant bar talking about himself. On-Screen Shiro talks about his grandfather’s restaurant and its influence on his choice of becoming a chef before the intro cuts to a shot of Shiro working out at the gym, tank top slightly soaked with sweat and clinging to his abs. Keith makes a small sound next to Shiro, but Shiro can’t tell if it was a positive or negative reaction.

“ _I was in an accident several years ago after culinary school, and it’s been important to me to recover from that both physically and mentally_ ,” Television Shiro explains, “ _and while I’m confident in my cooking, I’m not always confident elsewhere. Being on Chopped and winning means that I can show people you can recover from difficult experiences. You don’t have to let those experiences hold you back. Winning Chopped would show me that I’m still capable of being an excellent chef and don’t need to hide away. It’ll give me confidence back that I lost but know is just lying dormant these days._ ”

Couch Shiro hates how cheesey he sounds, but the sentiment he shared for the program is genuine.

With introductions concluded, the show moves on to Coran’s explanation of the rules and reveal of the basket ingredients. Shiro’s annoyed to see that the reaction they use for him was one of the black cloth takes. When the cooking begins, neither chef sitting on the couch has said anything or acknowledged the other, eyes glued to watching the television screen. 

The judges are introduced as the competitors on run around the pantry on screen. The show cuts to Lance’s interview where he excitedly discusses how he will fry the kelp noodles; the decision turns out to be a disaster for the chef. Shiro is then shown on screen at his cooking station, and horror goes through Couch Shiro as he silently prays that, no, they did not choose to keep in that truly cringeworthy moment.

“ _You’ve got a big knife_ ,” Shiro groans, throwing his head in his hands as Keith lets out a harsh laugh next to him.

“Did you really think they’d cut that out?” Keith asks amused and leans back into the couch, popping a piece of carrot into his mouth as his television counterpart replies with a “ _yours is big, too_.” Coran makes a scandalized face on-screen.

The show then cuts to Shiro happily explaining his dish, not a care in the world that he made an embarrassing comment about his competitors knife mere television moments ago. More usual back and forth of showing the judges and the chefs occurs with their interviews spliced in. Keith talks through his decision process for deciding on a pesto, and then the first commercial break begins.

“Well,” Keith starts, “that wasn’t too bad so far.”

Shiro nods even though he’s not in total agreement as he looks at at the text messages on his phone.

“ _Holy shit THIS is where you met Keith?_ ” from Rolo.

“ _HAHA BIG KNIFE. What else of his is big?_ ” from Matt

“ _I AM SO MAD AT YOU RIGHT NOW,_ ” from Nyma.

His friends suck.

“Do you want a drink?” Shiro asks. They hadn’t cracked into any alcohol yet, and it feels like the time to start drinking. Keith yells an affirmative response as Shiro hastily walks over to the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine from the fridge. Shiro uncorks the bottle and pours two glasses that he takes to the living room. Keith gets up and grabs the whole bottle to bring back to the couch.

“What? Don’t act like you won’t want it,” Keith points out in response to the look Shiro gives him.

The commercial break ends, and Shiro running behind Keith while holding onto the other man’s shoulder for a bit too long does make it to air. Shiro hopes it came off as innocent kitchen etiquette.

Then, the first crime of the _Chopped_ editors occurs.

At the five minute mark, a closeup of Keith shows the chef focused on plating, determination written across his face. This then cuts to Shiro, frozen at the cooking station next to Keith, staring at the dark haired chef. Television Shiro’s mouth is just barely parted while watching the other man work. Allura’s yell of “ _What is Shiro doing?_ ” gets played over the scene. The shot then pans out to show both of the chefs before cutting back to Keith who turns his head to look in Shiro’s direction and smile. Shiro is then shown smiling back at Keith. 

Couch Shiro’s jaw drops. That did not happen at all. Maybe Keith smiled over at Shiro, sure, but Shiro had snapped back into cooking mode when Allura had yelled and did not smile at Keith, let alone experience Keith’s smile at him after Shiro had been blatantly staring at him.

“Why did they edit it like that?” Shiro croaks out. 

“Yeah,” Keith says with a sideways glance at Shiro, the glass of wine at his lips. “Weird.”

The round ends, and the next editing crime unfurls before their eyes. A much briefer crime, but Shiro still feels like he needs to have a discussion with the crew. Maybe this is the work of that damned producer, Slav; Shiro still doesn’t trust him. Keith’s voice saying “good job” is heard with the two chefs standing next to each other looking at Shiro’s food. It has to be editing or something, Shiro thinks, because the angle makes it appear like Keith is resting his hand on Shiro’s back. Or maybe he really had been? Shiro can’t remember because all he does remember from that moment is Keith’s radiant smile to Shiro. That smile doesn’t get televised, thankfully, so it remains Shiro’s alone. 

Reliving the Chopping Block judging experience somehow still feels nerve wracking even though Shiro already lived through it. Though, watching himself explain why he’s on _Chopped_ and what it means for him to be there feels less uncomfortable because it was already stated in the introduction. When the green room is shown, there’s a closeup on Shiro and Keith as Shiro compliments Keith’s cooking and then another closeup on them as they laugh at look at each other after Pidge’s “sharpshooter” joke about Lance. Shiro feels a bit insane at thinking the show is focusing too much on the two chefs.

Commercials start again. Shiro pours himself another glass of wine, incredibly unaware that he had even finished the first. He wordlessly hands the bottle to Keith who also refills his glass. Shiro doesn’t bother to look at his phone this time, dreading to see what new capslock messages await him. 

“I don’t know what to say, really,” Keith admits. “Since we already know what happens.” 

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, “Just a lot of commentary on the editing if anything.”

“Yeah,” Keith huffs, “The editing.”

The two men sit in silence save for the sound of advertisements until the episode resumes. It’s still a bit sad to watch Lance get Chopped and exit the competition.

During the entree round, focus mainly gets placed on Pidge’s problems with getting the smoke gun to work on her yak strip steaks. The interview with her that they cut to makes Shiro feel distressed because he can truly feel how distraught she is in her voice explaining what went wrong. He knows it had to have been miserable for Pidge to go from experiencing the loss due to smoke gun mishap and have to immediately sit in an interview seat and explain it to the camera. Screen time is also given to Keith lamenting the consistency of his mashed potatoes and Shiro attempting to justify that his strange coconut pretzel spice rub on the steaks stands a chance of turning out well. 

Keith makes fun of Shiro about the ridiculous spice rub, and Shiro jabs back that he clearly needs to show Marmora’s Head Chef how to properly make mashed potatoes. Knowing that they both underperform this round but make it to the final helps the two pass time watching the entree round with jokes and the food they had meticulously prepared earlier. They also manage to finish off the bottle of wine, and Keith gets up this time to retrieve the second bottle for them to undoubtedly also drink in no time.

Shiro feels slightly buzzed and warm from the wine and extremely comfortable in the softness of his couch and Keith’s gaze on him. They’ve drifted closer together on the couch, but there’s still distance between them. The months of hanging out at each other’s restaurants and time getting to know each other to build their friendship don’t make today feel like it’s the first occasion they’ve been in a non-work setting together. It feels natural for Keith to be sitting, head leaned back with the hair tie on his small ponytail threatening to slip out, on the couch watching television in Shiro’s apartment. It’s that same feeling Shiro had while they were filming. That feeling that maybe they were always meant to find each other. 

Breaking him from his thoughts, Television Shiro appears on screen with an interview talking about his competitors. Couch Shiro remembers how much the producers pushed him to trash talk and their annoyance at his refusal to do so. 

“Chef Keith seems like an incredibly capable cook. He’s someone I would trust to run my kitchen, which in a way, means I would probably trust him with my life,” Shiro says with a laugh and a smile, and Keith lets out a low whistle.

“Trusting me with your life, that’s steep,” he takes a drink of wine. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Keith adds with a small laugh.

“You never know,” Shiro adds gravely. “Errant knives abound in kitchens.” Keith snorts and reaches for another crab cake. 

Once they get through watching the entree round judging again, Shiro’s phone sitting on the coffee table lights up and starts to continuously buzz with incoming text messages. He ignores the phone in favor of pouring more wine for the final two on the couch and raises his glass.

“May the best chef win,” Shiro jokingly toasts.

“To the best chef,” Keith agrees, smiling at Shiro, eyes shining.

“There’s no one else I’d rather be here with,” Keith says on the television as the two chefs maintain eye contact in the living room while taking their drinks. Shiro’s chest feels heavy.

They turn back to the show and watch their frantic rushing to prepare desserts. 

“German chocolate with the sauerkraut really was genius,” Shiro remarks wistfully as Keith’s interview explaining his decision plays on screen.

 _Chopped_ cuts back to Keith’s interview, where this time he’s talking about Shiro.

“ _I_ _’ve heard of Chef Shiro and admire him,_ ” Keith states. “ _In a way, I feel like we’ve got relatable experiences and reasons to be here. I want the best for him._ ”

Shiro’s taken aback by Keith’s admission on the show but doesn’t have time to thank Keith because the dramatics of Shiro cutting himself begin to play out on screen. The camera shows Coran observing that Shiro’s injured himself and the pained expressions on Allura and Hunk’s faces—Sal remains stoic. Keith stops cooking momentarily and looks over with worry as the hurt chef washes his hand in the sink and the on-set medic comes to his aid.

“I can’t believe I cut myself, Shiro’s voiceover starts. “ _All it takes is a moment of losing focus, and you can mess up, putting yourself behind. That’s what I did to myself._ ” Shiro shakes his head in dismay in the interview. 

The episode goes to commercial, and Shiro realizes they’re saving the other dessert round dramatics he provided for the last bit of the show. Keith rises to go to the bathroom, and Shiro makes the decision to look at his phone.

“ _YOU AND KEITH?_ ” from Rollo.

“ _You told me that bandage was from a gym equipment accident!_ ” from Shay.

“ _I AM EVEN MORE ANGRY AT YOU NOW_ ,” from Nyma.

“ _When is the wedding? Love, the Holts,_ ” from Matt.

Shiro sees even more messages but just tosses his phone into the pillows on the side of the couch, unamused. His stomach churns, and Shiro knows it’s not from the food or drink. Everyone thinks one of the worst mistakes on the show is cutting yourself since you should know better as a professional chef, but now everyone is going to see that Shiro went a step further and just froze in the kitchen. He knows that there’s no reason to beat himself up about it; other people would react similarly in the stress of the situation. Shiro just feels like he should have done better. Sighing, he rubs his hands across his face, and that’s how Keith finds him upon returning to the living room.

“If you’re already mentally berating yourself for when you got stressed out this round, please don’t,” Keith gently admonishes Shiro.  

Shiro removes his hands from his face and looks at Keith. There’s a crease between his eyebrows, and his eyes are drawn together with worry. Keith’s mouth is slightly open as well. He apparently also has let his hair fall free from the slipping hair tie, letting it curl around his neck. Shiro wants to reach out to him, cup his face in his hand, run a thumb across the sharp cheekbone and thank him for everything. Thank him for being an amazing chef, for cooking for him, for helping Shiro in so many that Keith doesn’t even know.

“Shiro?” Keith shifts closer to Shiro, voice soft and questioning.

The show resumes and Shiro turns his head to the television. “It’s almost over,” Shiro mumbles. The ache in his chest is starting to hurt. Keith sits back down on the couch, keeping even less distance between them than before. 

Shiro yelling “ _FUCK_ ” is the first thing they show upon returning from the commercials. Even though it’s censored, Shiro still physically cringes to witness himself lose control like that on screen. And then it’s just Shiro, staring at his cooking space, unmoving. His face lacks emotion, and Shiro doesn’t want to watch but knowledge of what happens next keeps his eyes locked on the screen. 

“ _I just…_ ” it cuts to the interview with Shiro, throwing his hands up in the air, not knowing how to convey what happened to him in that moment. “ _I just got overwhelmed_ ,” he concludes.

Keith is on the screen now, cooking slowing has he watches Shiro and asks, “ _Hey, buddy, you okay?_ ”

Allura has her hands covering her mouth at the judge’s table, and Hunk stands up as if he wants to intervene in some way. Coran opens and closes his mouth several times, but for some reason, none of them say anything. Even Sal has some worry etched onto his face.

A shot of the whole kitchen shows both chefs staring at each other from opposite sides of the kitchen, neither of them cooking as the clock ticks down quickly behind them. There’s silence in Shiro’s living room as the two chefs watch their television counterparts. 

“ _Just focus and you’ll be fine_ ,” Keith says and Shiro lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. Shiro on-screen says his thanks and resumes cooking.

“ _I like Chef Shiro_ ,” Keith begins in the show as it cuts back to an interview, “ _He’s hot, too_ ,” Keith laughs in the interview, looking to the side away from the camera. “ _Maybe I’ll ask him out after this._ ”

“Keith,” Shiro chokes out, quickly swinging his head around to look at the other man.

Keith’s eyes remain on the screen, but there’s a small blush across his face. He doesn’t turn when he begins speaking, voice quiet. “I didn’t think I actually would.” 

“Actually would what?” Shiro asks, heart pounding. They are sitting awfully close on this couch now that Shiro really pays attention.

“That I would see you again after the show,” Keith responds. He raises a hand to nervously run through his hair.

“Keith,” Shiro says again. It’s all he can say now apparently.

Finally, Keith turns to look at Shiro, and his eyes are bright in the slightly dark room. He looks scared for split second before changing his features to look as determined as they did in the _Chopped_ kitchen. They look as determined as he did the first time Shiro walked into Marmora and Keith confidently stalked back into the kitchen to cook for the other chef. 

Shiro realizes maybe he’s in love with the chef in front of him.

Shiro’s hand cups Keith’s face gently and a thumb runs across the cheek, just as he had been imaging mere minutes before when this seemed like a wild and yearning dream that would never come to fruition.

When their mouths finally come together, Shiro expects the kiss to be hungry and harsh, as if all the months of their unacknowledged feelings would meet in the same frantic emotions they had while competing on the show. Instead, it’s soft. It’s a slow, gentle thing like all their shared evenings in each others restaurants with the warmth of food they’d cooked. Keith tastes like wine and saffron, and it’s better than anything Shiro’s had in his years in the culinary business. Shiro pulls Keith onto him as he leans back to lie on the couch. They shift slowly to get comfortable, and for once the warmth Shiro’s felt with Keith and the ache in his chest is from Keith lying on top of him. 

Keith leans his forehead against Shiro’s, purple eyes meeting grey as he says a soft “hey.” Shiro smiles and moves his right hand to Keith’s hair while running his left hand up and down Keith’s back. Keith has one hand cupping Shiro’s face and they both move at the same time to kiss again, this time with slightly more force but still lazily, as if they’re aware they’ve crossed the biggest hurdle now and have all the time for each other.

When they break apart, Shiro speaks. “I’m scared,” he admits quietly.

“Why?” Keith asks, hand moving from Shiro’s face to his neck, gently scraping the short hairs of the undercut. 

“Our schedules,” Shiro admits.

“We can make it work,” Keith nods in agreement, looking back at Shiro with a determined gaze that makes Shiro’s whole body ache with how much he cares about this chef settled on top of him. Shiro knows it’s true; they’ll make it work.

Keith places his head on Shiro’s chest and turns to watch the end of the episode, and Shiro follows suit. The show is on the two chefs sitting in the green room, looking at each other softly and throwing endless strings of compliments. Instead of the usual dramatic music, the music playing over the scene is soft and light. This is another editing crime, but Shiro minds it much less now.

“ _Your presentation has been gorgeous all day_ ,” Keith says.

Shiro’s hand squeezes Keith’s arm on top of him and he whispers, “I wanted to say that you looked gorgeous all day.”

Keith snorts and says “lame” while on-screen him says an awed “ _you’re so good_ ” to Shiro. Both men on the couch laugh. They watch as Shiro’s Chopped on the show. Shiro wraps his arms around Keith, hugging him tighter as he hugs Keith in congratulations on screen. 

Shiro walks down the Hallway of Disappointment after losing, and it goes to his post-defeat interview.

“ _I cooked well today, and I’m proud of what I did here,_ ” Shiro says, “ _And I hope to see Chef Keith again after today._ ”

Coran and the judges congratulate Keith on being the _Chopped_ Champion.

“ _So, are you going to look for Chef Shiro after this?_ ” Coran asks Keith, twirling his mustache.

Keith sputters in response as Allura and Hunk laugh; Sal looks minutely amused. The two chefs really had been exceedingly obvious during the show.

As the show ends with a clip of Keith triumphantly declaring himself _Chopped_ Champion, Shiro hugs Keith closer and whispers, “you won,” while placing a soft kiss on the top of the dark hair. 

Keith moves his head to rest his chin on Shiro’s chest, looking at Shiro. “Yeah,” he responds, voice low. 

“You’re so good,” Shiro adds, hand resuming its leisurely movement up and down Keith’s back. Keith hums and smiles back at Shiro. “You know,” Shiro quirks his head, “I won, too, in a way.” 

“You’re such a sap,” Keith rolls his eyes and laughs.

“Oh,” Shiro proclaims, “I don’t mean this.” 

Keith sits up a little bit on Shiro and looks confused. 

“I mean that I’m not going to be the one asked to come back on _Chopped Tournament of Champions_ ,” Shiro explains, voice serious. 

The look of shock and then misery that crosses Keith’s face as Shiro starts laughing and Keith pulls the pillow out from under Shiro’s head and shoves it in the chef’s face is worth it for Shiro. Everything up until this moment is worth it for Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for going on this culinary Sheith journey with me!
> 
> Come yell at me about Sheith and/or cooking on [Tumblr](http://exitlude.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> Part two will have even more fluff, pining, sweetness, and food service industry.
> 
> Come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://exitlude.tumblr.com/).


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